Morality of Eating Meat

[vegan]

No, it just shows an instance of less self-awareness and how we project our own state of self-awareness upon that situation. We are taking about a human losing something that it originally had as opposed to an animal that originally didn't have it.

ok, i see what you were showing
so, apart from that, you do agree that humans can in certain circumstances be less self-aware than normal humans, which for you means that they are not self-aware since for you "Consciousness is absolute, you either have to have it or not"
and since your argument is that vegetative state = just reacting to negative stimuli = ok to hurt, you're saying it is ok to hurt/kill a retarded human

If we did achieve self-consciousness way earlier, then why didn't we debate the morality of eating animals then? It's impossible to tell when we gained such

because we then gained a limited, newly-born (self)consciousness
one that didn't allow us yet to debate other animals' consciousness
the same way other animals are not debating today humans' consciousness although they are themselves conscious

The chemicals and minerals in things like fish oil etc. cannot be found in abundant supply anywhere else. To get the correct nutrients for a fit and healthy survival and dominance we would have to eat 2 times as much vegies and fruits as we do the various meats and then have to take daily dietry suppliments.

Vegetarianism is not good for people who play sport competetively or for long term generational brain and body growth, studies have shown this.

please do not just repeat myths that you've heard
(btw, what does "2 times as much vegies and fruits as we do the various meats" means?)
there are millions of vegetarians who have perfectly healthy bodies without any supplements
you just took that out of your magician hat
there are regions of the world where vegetarianism is the norm, and they would never think of taking supplements, because they don't need it

as for brain and body growth, andreas cahling is vegan and albert einstein was vegetarian

they don't have to have the same degree of consciousness as we do to be self-aware

That's an assumption..

oh! because "they can only be self-aware if they have the same degree of consciousness" is not an assumption twice as big maybe?

Consciousness is absolute, you either have to have it or not. An organism cannot function on partial awareness

!!!
right!
so a new born is as self-aware as an adult maybe?
or does he become both conscious and self-aware on his 587th day?

you're denying an evidence
as humans become slowly and gradually self-aware as they grow up, animals are "partially" self-aware according to their capacities

100000 years ago, humans were self-aware. but not as much as today
they didn't know where they came from, what they were made of, etc.

In order to feel pain you need to be conscious of that pain

you don't have to be conscious of it but just to feel it, which doesn't require any understanding of what you're feeling

people here on BL would testify that you can be scared to death, while experiencing ego death (=without having a notion of risk)
it's a bit of the same idea

Do plants desire any less to live and grow, compared to animals? They evolve and adapt to suit/prosper in an environment. They try to get as much sunlight as possible by growing more leaves or stretching out the branch. But we don't care, our lives are much more important than their's

if you care about plants' lives, eat them directly
you waste much less plants by eating them directly than by eating man bred/created animals that will have been fed an intermediary consumption of plants during all their lives

but as for "do they desire to live?"
we can compare animals' desires to ours because rely on things that we both have (senses and central nervous system)
plants don't have that, so it's hard to tell
so since we deduce from observation and comparison that animals want to live and we are not sure that plants want to live, while knowing that eating plants directly will minimize the number of deaths of both, there's no logic in eating animals

It's Cartesianism.

descartes was one selfish mother fucker that i despise

Using a different criteria besides pain, we can justify that their lives are less important than ours

which other criteria? (i'm tired and can barely concentrate so i may just have missed it)
and what allows you to take pain of the equation?

(Why should pain be so readily accepted as a criteria with plants, but not any other criterias for animals?)

i don't follow you. the criteria would have to be added to pain, not replace it
if the pain criteria counts for plants, it counts for animals
and it gives different conclusions in the 2 cases

As a side note, fish and other sea creatures are so nutritional and their lives are not so valuable, why not eat them?

why are their lives not so valuable?

It has already been pointed out that humans have the ability to judge and reason. Animals don't. That's where automata and higher consciousness divide. You can't reduce humans to automata because of our ability to reason. People use this as an ethical factor when choosing to eat meat and until definitively proven on either side, the meat debate will continue.

denying that an animal feels pain and is self-aware (at his scale) is like denying a bit like denying that a chinese feels pain because you don't understand when he says it

only if you're blinded by your a prejudices can you deny the proofs of observation

answer once and for all. where do you draw the line between human and pre-homo sapiens human?
if (=since) consciousness didn't appear at one exact instant in the change from pre-homo sapiens to homo sapiens, then the pre homo sapiens was conscious
that's an ape!
and the apes that exist today may very well evolve in cousins of humans doted with similar intelligence
and why would apes be conscious but not other animals?

I put plants on the same level as animals, and me for that reason. So in my eyes, its no less cruel to be a vegitarian than it is to be a carnivore.

plants don't feel pain as we know it (through central nervous system)
they don't suffer from being immobilized by intensive farming
they don't suffer from the noise, the lack of social life, the lack of hygiene, etc.

+ cf before in same post
if you care about plants, eat them directly, you'll consume less

If one believes that partial consciousness does exist, how far along the line do we stop and what objective characteristics can we base that on?

who said we have to stop?
consciousness just decreases asymptotically in all living organisms as those are more simple

(anyway, if find it "objective" to draw the line of consciousness between humans and other animals, it's not hard to find "objective" criteria to draw a separation between live and not alive or plant and animal )

i won't be here for a week. Dtergent , ebola and anyone else willing, twice as much work for you

 

[Judas]

if you care about plants' lives, eat them directly
you waste much less plants by eating them directly than by eating man bred/created animals that will have been fed an intermediary consumption of plants during all their lives

Certain plants like grass for instance, we cannot eat because we can't digest it. But cows can eat them, thats what they evolved to eat. Grass grows quickly and abundantly, without draining the soil of nutrients. Why feel bad about "wasting" grass? Many people don't realize that eating herivores do not drain more resources than eating plants. Think of grass as a renewable food source that never runs out.

but as for "do they desire to live?"
we can compare animals' desires to ours because rely on things that we both have (senses and central nervous system)
plants don't have that, so it's hard to tell
so since we deduce from observation and comparison that animals want to live and we are not sure that plants want to live, while knowing that eating plants directly will minimize the number of deaths of both, there's no logic in eating animals

All organisms "desire" to live, plants included. No need to see if they have senses or similar physiology to us. All you need to look at is the fact that they have evolved in such a way as to increase their ability to survive.
The lack of a central nervous system in plants only indicate that they don't feel what we understand as pain. Though someone indicated that plants do react to damage which might be analogous to pain.

what allows you to take pain of the equation?

It is possible to kill an animal without inflicting pain. If pain is the only criteria for not killing an animal, we can still kill them as long as they don't suffer pain.
I was arguing about the life issue, about the value of animal life itself, so pain is omitted.

As a side note, fish and other sea creatures are so nutritional and their lives are not so valuable, why not eat them?
why are their lives not so valuable?

Not so valuable when compared to human life, or even to mammal life. Do you disagree?

 

[DJDannyUhOh]

and since your argument is that vegetative state = just reacting to negative stimuli = ok to hurt, you're saying it is ok to hurt/kill a retarded human

If A=B and B=C, therefore A=C only works in mathematics, not when you're applying ethics. By your method, this next statement must be true:

God is love. Love is blind. Therefore Ray Charles must be God, right? Doesn't work. It's a mere syllogism and ignores reason.

because we then gained a limited, newly-born (self)consciousness one that didn't allow us yet to debate other animals' consciousness the same way other animals are not debating today humans' consciousness although they are themselves conscious

so a new born is as self-aware as an adult maybe?
or does he become both conscious and self-aware on his 587th day?
you're denying an evidence
as humans become slowly and gradually self-aware as they grow up, animals are "partially" self-aware according to their capacities

Then how is it that we can be taught to reason, debate about other animals, and come to realize self-awareness, yet we cannot teach the same thing to an animal? You can't teach an animal to reason therefore you can't compare an infant to an animal.

denying that an animal feels pain and is self-aware (at his scale) is like denying a bit like denying that a chinese feels pain because you don't understand when he says it

Chinese (or any other race or culture you wish to use) are human. We know what it's like to be human because we experience it. When it comes to animals, we use contemporary phenomenology to at least grasp what we are trying to understand. What it's like to be Chinese and what it's like to be a fruit bat are totally opposite concepts and that's why we debate on the areas of consciousness, self-awareness, and pain.

descartes was one selfish mother fucker that i despise

You only say that because what he theorizes goes against your own personal beliefs. He is considered one of the most influential thinkers of modern philosophy. This thread wouldn't exist if it wasn't for the notions he intoduced and you can't just dismiss it because it goes against your argument.

answer once and for all. where do you draw the line between human and pre-homo sapiens human?
if (=since) consciousness didn't appear at one exact instant in the change from pre-homo sapiens to homo sapiens, then the pre homo sapiens was conscious
that's an ape!

You can't draw a line in terms of a specific time but there is a line somewhere. If there wasn't a line, we wouldn't be having this discussion, no? Actually you shouldn't be on the computer considering it most likely contains animal-derived adhesives.

who said we have to stop?
consciousness just decreases asymptotically in all living organisms as those are more simple

Of course we have to stop. If we don't, then you would agree that bacteria have consciousness and would not require chemotaxis, yet they do which indicates they lack consciousness/self-awareness.

 

[drEaMtiMe*@#]

ideally i think that people should only eat the meat of animals that they could actually kill themselves.

so... that pretty much leaves me with fish - i know i could kill a fish, but as for killing a lamb or pig etc, i could never do it.

damn me for being a hypocrite.

 

[DJDannyUhOh]

that's a myth
here is the position of the american dietetic association:
http://www.eatright.org/cps/rde/xchg...3_ENU_HTML.htm

Actually, it's not that far fetched. These are from that same web site.

Some studies suggest that vegans who do not consume iodized salt may be at risk for iodine deficiency; this appears to be particularly true for those living in iodine-poor areas.

Some vegans may have intakes for vitamin B-12, vitamin D, calcium, zinc, and occasionally riboflavin that are lower than recommended.

Recommended iron intakes for vegetarians are 1.8 times those of nonvegetarians because of lower bioavailability of iron from a vegetarian diet.

Because phytate binds zinc, and animal protein is believed to enhance zinc absorption, total zinc bioavailability appears to be lower on vegetarian diets (63). Also, some vegetarians have diets that are significantly below recommended intakes for zinc.

Foods that are fortified with vitamin D include cow's milk, some brands of soymilk and rice milk, and some breakfast cereals and margarines (see Table). Vitamin D3 (cholecalciferol) is of animal origin, whereas vitamin D2 (ergocalciferol) is a form acceptable to vegans. Vitamin D2 may be less bioavailable than vitamin D3, which could raise the requirements of vegetarians who depend on D2 supplements to meet vitamin D needs.

Sources of vitamin B-12 that are not derived from animals include B-12 fortified foods (such as some brands of soymilk, breakfast cereals, and nutritional yeast) or supplements (see Table). Unless fortified, no plant food contains significant amounts of active vitamin B-12. Foods such as sea vegetables and spirulina may contain vitamin B-12 analogs; neither these nor fermented soy products can be counted on as reliable sources of active vitamin B-12.

...and it goes on like this but you get the basics of it.

Now before the vegetarians and vegans get their panties all in a bunch, I would like to follow up with this. By NO MEANS am I trying to exhibit that a vegetarian or vegan diet is unhealthy. In fact it's to the contrary. What this does show is that in order to establish recommended nutritional requirements on these diets, you must be extremely vigilante and recognize what food sources you need more of and what sources carry more bioavailability than others. A vegetarian or vegan diet that is chronically vitamin deficient is equally as unhealthy as a diet containing excess meat consumption. Some people say it's nothing to just simply switch to a vegetarian diet, however that is not the case if you want to obtain equal RDA amounts of an omnivorous diet.

 

[Judas]

^ Good post. Learned something new.

Sounds quite tough to be this vigilent though.

 

[protovack]

I'd like to see what the vegetarians come up with in response to the fact that killing a cow does not mean it felt any pain. An electric shock is instantaneous and the animal would be dead before the pain signal was ever consciously perceived.

So now you are left with the terrible conditions argument. Which is fine...but all the universal moralists will have to take a few steps down from their ivory tower for this one.

Why not eat free range cows? They have a wonderful life full of green grass and sunshine. And thanks to us humans....they have a zero percent chance of getting their throat slashed by a predator before they have lived a full life. And as payment, we merely ask that they serve as our food when they are mature!

 

[ebola?]

>>In fact it's to the contrary. What this does show is that in order to establish recommended nutritional requirements on these diets, you must be extremely vigilante and recognize what food sources you need more of and what sources carry more bioavailability than others.>>

This is a good point, but ANY healthy diet requires variety and vigilance. Animal foods tend to crowd out room for dietary fiber. Me? I got MAD fiber shooting through my gut. This is just an example...

>>I'd like to see what the vegetarians come up with in response to the fact that killing a cow does not mean it felt any pain. An electric shock is instantaneous and the animal would be dead before the pain signal was ever consciously perceived.>>

Cattle are typically killed with bolt-guns or slits to the neck. Due to issues with technique and requirements for speed, these deaths are very rarely instantaneous.

>>...but all the universal moralists will have to take a few steps down from their ivory tower for this one. >>

Who are these people? Are any of them in the thread?

>>And as payment, we merely ask that they serve as our food when they are mature!>>

When they mature? Actually, we cut their lives quite short. But, you're right. Free range meat (and not all nominally free range food will meet this criterion) is indeed more humane.

ebola

 

[Jabberwocky]

Wow. That took a really long time. here are some of the reasons i do not eat meat
Eco diversity and sustained habitat:

 

[Jabberwocky]

Most people are aware of the high demand for building land for new houses and urban expansion, yet food production is the cause of a less noticeable demand for land. If people ate only food of plant origin, typically only a sixth of the amount of land would be needed to feed a given amount of people than would otherwise be needed to feed the same amount of people with animal derived food. Part of the reason for this is that when animal derived food is produced, not only are you providing food to feed X amount of people, you also have to feed Y amount of farm animals. Producing food only of plant origin would mean woodland and hedgerow would no longer need to be destroyed and more could be planted to reverse past woodland and hedgerow decline. More woodland and hedgerow would help prevent soil erosion and keep land fertile, provide cleaner air and make more habitats available for endangered species and other wild life.

I wont get into the ethical issue of the consumption of animals, because it is my belie,f that it is spiritually wrong for me to eat meat because i could not kill the animal myself. Haivng someone kill them for me so i wont have the blood on my hands, is tantimount to assasination in my view. I always urge people who eat meat to get more choice cuts of meat from free range or organic animals because if for only the reason of not innoculating you body with all the hormones that are being injected into our livestock to produce "healther" food stuff.

A few things: I agree with the point that animals feel pain and are reactant to it and will avoid this negative stimuli. I think it has to be a form of advanced consciousness because even an animal who has not personally underwent the same kind of brutal treatment as another of its ilk will cry out in pain and frustration and often times empathy of its breathren. I understand that this in part can be attributed as anthropomorphism on the vegans part. If animals didnt have a large portion of simularities with humans then we as humans wouldnt experiment on them to see how various stimuli and chemicle reactants will potentially effect our systems.

A note on soy: Soy is not the miricle food it is made out to be. Its common widespread use in the modern era can be attributed to media marketing liken to the dairy industry. In fact one of the leading providers of soymilk Silk soymilk is distibuted and made by dean farms, the largest american supplyer of Whole sale milk. CHances are if you have consumed milk in the last few years it came from dean farms. Something like 75 percent in made there. While it is true that the chimicalization of our nation is the reason having a healthy vegan diet it is untrue that before that time it was impossible. It is now possible to have any abundant amount of soy at your fingertypes but the chemicle process of silk like tofu has actually increased the amount of antinutriant and phytochemicals that harm our bodies. If you eat a diet rich in grains legumes and soy you may want to think about switching to a more fermented source of soy like tempe or miso. The longer the fermentation process the more healthier the break down of nutrients in the system. The average American who eats a diet rich in soy is over doing it causing bowel distress and other discomforts. It also helps one loos important vitamins like zinc and magnesium,. For some reason soy blocks the uptake of those vitamins which is why most soy products are heavily fortified with the aforementioned chemicles.

In regaurds to the vitamin in take for vegans: While it is true that a meat eating unconscious diet makes it easier to gain a more proportinate and complete set of nutrients i feel it also produces an overreliance on an industry that would rather see you dead at all costs than to give up on its profit margins. I think the beefing up of americans is an atrocity. Because we mass produce all these animals under extream conditions for quick turn around, we are left with an abundance of add ons and left over peices that we need to find uses for elsewhere. Im in agreeance with the principal that if your killing animals at the very least be kind enough to use all parts but the level in which we cull and slaughter animals we have found animal products in anything. It would be one thing if the american diet was the products of just dairy and meat but its chemicle synthesises of dairy is what frightenes the hell out of me. cassien, retin, to name a few.

Ethical arguments:
I understand the argument about eating plants and there ability at least chemically to feel pain. I can only say to this that if you were to be able to quantify for a certainty that plants feel pain i would try my hardest to avoid them. But there is something that is interesting about plants they often times rely on a form of symbiosis. WE eat it and we digest it therefore increasing the need for it so we harvest and cultivate it. One can say the same thing about live stock only live stock has been forced to be symiotic with us and us paracitic on them because of percieved need.

The hunter gather myth: At first it was not viable for man to eat a largely based meat diet because as a one person or small collective it was often times hard to defend oneself against carnivorous preditars. Only latter when we started having packs of humans did we become true hunter gather. Now this does not mean that the hunter gather archetype is not valid it just means that the option for sustainability of a more vegtable based diet has been a primitive decision and neccesity.

Native americans as hunter gatherers: It is a common myth that native americans are hunter gather tribes. This so called buffallo riding skin wearing meat eaters. A large part of native american lore and culture is the respect of ones enviroment and the animals who inhabit them. It makes no sense for a group of people to deify animals and them consume them on the regular.

here is an excep from an article i read:

How well we know the stereotype of the rugged Plains Indian: killer of buffalo, dressed in quill-decorated buckskin, elaborately feathered headdress, and leather moccasins, living in an animal skin teepee, master of the dog and horse, and stranger to vegetables. But this lifestyle, once limited almost exclusively to the Apaches, flourished no more than a couple hundred years. It is not representative of most Native Americans of today or yesterday. Indeed, the "buffalo-as-lifestyle" phenomenon is a direct result of European influence, as we shall see. ...

More than one tribe has creation legends which describe people as vegetarian, living in a kind of Garden of Eden. A Cherokee legend describes humans, plants, and animals as having lived in the beginning in "equality and mutual helpfulness". The needs of all were met without killing one another. When man became aggressive and ate some of the animals, the animals invented diseases to keep human population in check. The plants remained friendly, however, and offered themselves not only as food to man, but also as medicine, to combat the new diseases.

More tribes were like the Choctaws than were different. Aztec, Mayan, and Zapotec children in olden times ate 100% vegetarian diets until at least the age of ten years old. The primary food was cereal, especially varieties of corn. Such a diet was believed to make the child strong and disease resistant. (The Spaniards were amazed to discover that these Indians had twice the life-span they did.) A totally vegetarian diet also insured that the children would retain a life-long love of grains, and thus, live a healthier life. Even today, the Indian healers of those tribes are likely to advise the sick to "return to the arms of Mother Corn" in order to get well. Such a return might include eating a lot of atole. (The easiest way to make atole is to simmer commercially produced masa harina corn flour with water. Then flavor it with chocolate or cinnamon, and sweeten to taste.) Atole is considered a sacred food.

It is ironic that Indians are strongly associated with hunting and fishing when, in fact, "nearly half of all the plant foods grown in the world today were first cultivated by the American Indians, and were unknown elsewhere until the discovery of the Americas." Can you imagine Italian food without tomato paste, Ireland without white potatoes, or Hungarian goulash without paprika? All these foods have Indian origins

From what i have read about small scale eco diversity or permaculture, i can agree that it is true, this will eventually help heal and sustain the enviroment. I dont think most vegans and vegetarians would argue that the healthy ubringing of animals and proper respect afforded to an emotionally conscious animal goes along way to ending the hypocracy of the slaughter industry. The weird thing is me and mehm became vegetarian/vegans together and yet we evolved in such a different way. And whose to say that either of us have it wrong: Me with my complete boycotting of animal products based on the conditions of living and my own moral fortitude that i couldnt bring myself to kill and animal or mehm who is raising his own food in great conditions for his or his communities consomption. Thus eleviating the need to support an industry he finds unjust or corupt and wasteful.

I dont like the them against us arguments more often than not leveled against one another in a discussion based on morality. Is it immoral to not take into consideration other points of view based on evolution of consciosness and religion and habit? Do we need to attack each other because we feel the other might somehow weaken our stance. I understand it is the american way to have a my penis is bigger than your penis argument but there is room for both view, we all have large penises. I would jsut urge people who do consume animals to know where there meat comes from and demand better conditions because you only have one body and what you put into it needs to sustain you for life.

Make smart decisions, consider others as well as yourself. It never hurts to be mroe conscious of what you put in your body and where it came from. Eating meat in general is not morally wrong but denial of the realities of an industry that we are all partially responsible for is. Go free range and organic its mroe expensive but well worth it.

Phil

 

[Whoa]

There is room for all gods creatures.

Right next to the mashed potatoes

 

[DJDannyUhOh]

I dont like the them against us arguments more often than not leveled against one another in a discussion based on morality. Is it immoral to not take into consideration other points of view based on evolution of consciosness and religion and habit? Do we need to attack each other because we feel the other might somehow weaken our stance. I understand it is the american way to have a my penis is bigger than your penis argument but there is room for both view, we all have large penises. I would jsut urge people who do consume animals to know where there meat comes from and demand better conditions because you only have one body and what you put into it needs to sustain you for life.

Make smart decisions, consider others as well as yourself. It never hurts to be mroe conscious of what you put in your body and where it came from. Eating meat in general is not morally wrong but denial of the realities of an industry that we are all partially responsible for is. Go free range and organic its mroe expensive but well worth it.

Well said!!!

 

[turnandburn]

I don't believe that eating meat is wrong. I do, however, think that the current conditions of factory farm raised animals are atrocious. I think someone else posed this question already, but I didn't see an answer to it... Would it be wrong to eat meat if it was humanely raised and destroyed, in a pain free process?

I don't think we can compare the value of an animal to that of a human. Is it wrong for owners to humanely euthanize their sick animals, who are dying from liver/kidney failure, cancer, or other incurable diseases, when that animal is suffering? Is it wrong for overcrowded, underfunded animal humane societies to euthanize a sick animal, when the thousands of dollars that might have saved that 1 sick animal's life could instead go, perhaps, to save 20 other, healthier animals' lives? Certainly, if that animal was a human, the vast majority of people would object to these common animal practices, because one human life is much more precious than an animal life.

I do believe animals should be treated humanely and with respect, in an environment that is as close as possible to their natural one, and be destroyed in a humane and painfree process. We, as moral beings, should demand this from our suppliers. Even buying meat labeled "free range" isn't what you might think: happy cows grazing on green pasture grass and chickens romping and pecking through sand in the barnyard. For example, "free range" chicken only requires that, in a huge barn that could contain thousands of chickens, one small door large enough for one chicken allowing access to a very small fenced area outside. And that door only needs to be open some of the time.

 

[Judas]

Liquidphil, I like your reasons for not eating meat. If you can't kill it yourself, don't eat it. Very honorable. Many people, I believe, do not fully realize that the meat, neatly packaged in plastic, came from once living creatures. They probably would not be able to kill the creatures themselves if they were forced to kill it for food. Myself, I do know that I am able to kill animals for food (grew up on a farm), so I don't feel I am letting the meat industry do my dirty work.

If people ate only food of plant origin, typically only a sixth of the amount of land would be needed to feed a given amount of people than would otherwise be needed to feed the same amount of people with animal derived food. Part of the reason for this is that when animal derived food is produced, not only are you providing food to feed X amount of people, you also have to feed Y amount of farm animals.

I do believe that growing plants is more space efficient that raising farm animals. But I don't know if I believe that it is 6 times as efficient. In their math, it seems that they are oversimplifying things too much. You have to feed the animals, but food for animals, like grass, is more space efficient than food for humans, fruits and vegetables. And they forgot that farm animals themselves don't take up a lot of space and is a big contributor to food for humans. In addition, there are much more to consider here than just space, like sustainability for instance. Trees and such, which taxes the soil more that grass, would require soil rotation or soil fertilization. And with raising cows, you can use their manure as fertilizers for plants. The point is that raising cows along with growing plants is both sustainable and efficient.

Native americans as hunter gatherers: It is a common myth that native americans are hunter gather tribes. This so called buffallo riding skin wearing meat eaters. A large part of native american lore and culture is the respect of ones enviroment and the animals who inhabit them. It makes no sense for a group of people to deify animals and them consume them on the regular.

I just don't see how it is myth. Certaining many people think of the buffalo hunters when they think of Native Americans. This is a mistake on their part, as there are many differents tribes, with many different lifestyles. Are you saying that there are in fact no tribes that lived in the Great Plains of the US that primarily hunted for food?

 

[protovack]

Everyone has a right to eat whatever they want. But when it comes to "justification," herbivores have a very hard time.

First, the "utilitarian argument":

Any vegan, if dropped off in the middle of the African savannah, would soon find herself craving some protein. Where is she going to find it? Oh that's right, other animals. Herbivores have the right bacteria....we don't. And last I checked, the African savannah does not support vast fields of legumes. It supports seasonal grasses that grow rapidly, because rain is scarce. Humans evolved in this kind of environment. We eat meat because that was the only way we could get protein.

Oh but now we have agriculture! Sure we do, but it isn't necessarily more efficient, as has been pointed out by several people already. However, the efficiency of protein production isn't even the point. I find it hilarious that anti-omnivores would bother invoking the quantitative utilitarian argument...

The claim is that we should all be vegetarian because the carrying capacity of the planet would be higher. Welll, is that really the goal? Is that the only valid reason for doing something? Should we all drop everything and reorganize our lives to maximally emphasize reproduction to the exclusion of everything else?

"That's a straw-man!" Well, you asked for it by making the carrying capacity argument. And you are officially barring yourself from ever denouncing over-population.

The "Moral" argument:

Any vegetarian would, if necessary, kill an animal in order to survive. And it is unclear whether most humans would kill another human in order to survive. I'd say probably not. Thus the vegetarian adheres to the fundamental premise that his (human) life is more important than the animal's life.

So there is no "moral" argument. And because of this, the pain argument is irrelevant! If you would kill another animal to survive in the wild....then you would be subjecting the animal to pain. Period.

For every person I've ever met (hervibore and omnivore alike), human life trumps everything including animal life (and thus animal pain). There IS NO moral argument as long as you assign human life more value than animal life! And if would kill to eat in the wild, you do this!

Further, I believe that no herbivore would knowingly allow an animal to kill another human...proving that it is human life in general that is more valued (and not just their "own" human life).

Cattle are typically killed with bolt-guns or slits to the neck. Due to issues with technique and requirements for speed, these deaths are very rarely instantaneous.

But it is certainly swifter than being taken down by a predator in the wild.

Or maybe you believe that the pain/suffering of all the little swift deaths summed up is more problematic than all the brutal deaths experienced by every creature on earth that is not a predator. Or maybe not? The point here is that this is a moral argument, and as i've shown there is no moral argument.
You might argue instead that killing one buffalo in the wild is OK but killing a million cows is a million times worse. But is it really worse? If you were dropped off on the African plains, wouldn't you have to keep killing animals as long as you wanted to survive? How many animals, exactly, would you kill before you let yourself die? Are you carrying around some kind of universal "life value" scale that alerts you when you have to stop participating in the food chain and commit suicide?

So herbivores are left with the utilitarian argument. And in that realm, there are certainly some good arguments to be made (as long as you stay specific and refrain from the "carrying capacity" line of reasoning). There are health benefits, as well as ecological benefits.

But those aren't good enough for some herbivores. They have to apply all these moral layers to their position, and the only reason I can come up with is that they know their subjective arguments carry no weight with other people. They know their moral arguments are actually just hollow justifications for a personal belief...and that no moral argument can ever be valid given that they believe human life to be inherently more important than animal life.

I actually have immense respect for herbivores, because they have excercised their own free will in order to do something that they see as good. This is something we should all do, whether it is our diet or any other aspect of our behavior that affects others.

What I cannot stand, however, are all the moral crusaders who look down on people who eat meat. And they DO exist. They are mostly young adults trying to find their identity by putting themselves in a "moral" class and lumping everyone else into an "amoral class." Whether it is veganism, or religion, or anything else, this kind of thing is just shallow and most people outgrow it.

 

[ebola?]

>>The "Moral" argument:

Any vegetarian would, if necessary, kill an animal in order to survive. And it is unclear whether most humans would kill another human in order to survive. I'd say probably not. Thus the vegetarian adheres to the fundamental premise that his (human) life is more important than the animal's life.

So there is no "moral" argument. And because of this, the pain argument is irrelevant! If you would kill another animal to survive in the wild....then you would be subjecting the animal to pain. Period.

For every person I've ever met (hervibore and omnivore alike), human life trumps everything including animal life (and thus animal pain). There IS NO moral argument as long as you assign human life more value than animal life! And if would kill to eat in the wild, you do this!
>>

You are presupposing that
1. A moral argument must be universalizable across situations and
2. The valuation of non-human animal life requires moral equality of humans and other animals.

Your presuppositions are false and your argument is thus invalid.

>>But it is certainly swifter than being taken down by a predator in the wild. >>

That's a good point. I guess then it is more the quality and duration of the farm animal's life than the swiftness of death (in cases other than outright abuse of farm animals).

>>They know their moral arguments are actually just hollow justifications for a personal belief...>>

ummmm...

ebola

 

[DJDannyUhOh]

I'm beginning to think that it's quite frivolous to debate on "how" the animals are killed or even "if" they feel pain. From my understanding, even if pain and inhumane treatment was totally taken from the equation, vegans would still not eat animal products. These threads are fun but they just go in circles.

 

[ebola?]

>>even if pain and inhumane treatment was totally taken from the equation, vegans would still not eat animal products. >>

No...I'd be chill with it, assuming the animals were killed near where when they would die of old age.

ebola

 

[doesntmatter]

some animals eat their prey alive.

to torture an animal is wrong

however the regulations in the production of meat in most contries is appalling from an ethics stand point. has been and will always be.

there are many human rights problems to be delt with as well. will you stop participating in the act of being human because you don't agree with the majority of the population's actions? there is a very vast cast of people who play the role of puppets in countless places.

you have to live your life in a manner that you can be comfortable with. to what degree you must go is anyones game.

 

[protovack]

You are presupposing that
1. A moral argument must be universalizable across situations and
2. The valuation of non-human animal life requires moral equality of humans and other animals.

Your presuppositions are false and your argument is thus invalid.

How is it that one can simultaneously value animal life, but also be prepared to destroy it to ensure human survival? It's all or nothing, you either value human life more than buffalo life or vice-versa.

And why shouldn't moral arguments be universal, because you say they shouldn't be?

Within one person, a set of morals should probably be consistent, or else what do they really mean?