The Ethics of Eating Meat
Is eating meat morally permissible? Why or why not?
Do advances in slaughterhouses by individuals such as Temple Grandin make it less ethically problematic, if it even is problematic to begin with?
Do advances in slaughterhouses by individuals such as Temple Grandin make it less ethically problematic, if it even is problematic to begin with?
Comments (68)
These make carnivorie more ethical:
1. Being apprized of the conditions under which animals are turned into meat.
2. Choosing humanely raised and slaughtered meat (over totally rationalized industrialized methods)
3. Minimizing the amount of meat consumed
People who grow up in farming areas, whether on a farm or near a farm, have some idea of what animals experience. These days, people who care to know will understand what their egg, skinless chicken breast, hamburger, farm-raised fish, or pork chop suffered (or didn't), even if they live on the 75th floor of a midtown Manhattan co-op.
Eating force-fed Pâté de foie gras (goose liver) seems patently unethical. Animals (calves, swine) raised in quarters so confined they literally can't turn around, or are bred to gain weight so fast their legs can't support them (turkeys) is an example of unethical rationalized industrial production.
Eggs, chickens, geese, ducks, cattle, pigs, goats and sheep can all be raised under humane conditions. What can't happen is raising the volume of meat we presently produce for domestic consumption and trade. Generally, Americans eat more meat than is necessary (or desirable) for a healthy diet. 1 3-oz. serving per day is enough; can one get along on less and eat a healthy diet? Absolutely.
If Americans ate a minimum of meat (rather than as much as possible) most animals could be raised ethically. As a double plus benefit, raising less meat, milk, and eggs would make a significant contribution to reducing our carbon footprint.
There is a financial cost involved. Producing chickens and eggs on actual pasturage is much less efficient than rationalized industrial methods. A dozen eggs produced this way would cost about twice as much as "cage free organically fed" eggs cost -- in other words, about $8 to $10 a dozen. Roosters raised for meat would cost more too. 2,500-cow milking operations of the sort they use in Texas are incompatible with free-range grazing cows. It would take way too long for 2,500 cows to wander out to the pasturage and then wander back in -- you need a lot of acreage for 2,500 cows. Thus it is that humanely raised milk, beef, and pork also costs more than industrialized production.
Animals that dine al fresco and walk around all day on dirt have more natural lives, most likely more pleasant, but they don't grow or produce as fast as animals raised indoors. They use up more energy just being themselves. They take their time. And for chickens especially, if they aren't protected in some way (even pasture raised animals) there is continual predation by wild animals like hawks, fox, coyotes, and wolves who like the same meat we do.
Other countries have their own ethics problems with food which they will have to address.
Between feasts people ate brown bread, gruel, some vegetables--not a lot in the northern areas. Maybe bits of dried fruit. Beer (home made, in a barrel--maybe with chickens roosting over the barrel--see John Skelton's long raucous poem, The Tunning of Elynour Rummyng.) Some cheese, some milk, maybe. An egg every now and then. Fish perhaps. No meat. It would all depend on one's location in the world, the season, and one's prosperity.
Of course, people ate better in mid summer and fall than they did from late winter to early summer.
This didn't really change until relatively recently (like the 19th century). Greater and more wide-spread prosperity enabled more people to inch up the social/dietary ladder. Better agriculture and trade helped. "Plenty" arrived for many people in the 20th century, but diets were still comparatively parsimonious until quite recently--say, since 1970, just to pick out an arbitrary date.
People started eating more servings of protein foods (meat, milk, cheese, fish) and with it a lot more fat. Real bread was 'refined' into the Wonder Bread sponge, gruel was replaced by Fruit Loops, actual cheese was replaced by Velveeta plasticized cheese-like by-product, and so on. Pizza was probably the leading edge of the higher-fat-extra-protein glacier. (Pizza became a thing in the 1960s, at least in the midwest.)
Part of our problem today is that jumping off the high-fat, high-protein, high sugar glacier to the low-fat, lower protein, much lower sugar zone is that psychologically it has become something of a dive into an empty swimming pool.
A healthier diet would hearken back to the 19th century and earlier (minus all the alcohol they were drinking--a lot!) and would just be much more vegetable than meat. Keep the 9 servings of fruits and vegetables, lower fat milk, cheese, eggs, whole grains and beans, and eat meat sparingly.
I'd recommend a gradual change towards a more parsimonious diet over several months time. Start at the shallowest end of the empty swimming pool and move slowly. Consider returning meat to it's feast status.
All of this is, of course, good advice. Do as I say, not as I do.
Another odd thing: with our intelligence and emotional depth, we humans are best suited to appreciate life. And yet, when we examine life, it appears to be devoid of any meaning.
Rather peculiar, wouldn't you say?
I eat only vegetables who have died of natural causes. I say "who" because I think it's discriminatory to think of plants and people differently. I've been waiting for a carrot to die in my yard so that I can eat it. Any day now.
My cat won't eat peas. She sort of swats them around. She eats fish though. She's such a dick about this whole thing.
A well-cared-for dairy cow isn't subjected to much suffering. Neither are well-cared-for pigs. Poultry get the short end of the stick, but they also have the smallest brains to contemplate their sorry state. Geese? Wild geese have a little bit more going for them upstairs, but most domestic geese are raised outdoors. Turkeys? Wild turkeys are brighter than domestic ones, but not many wild turkeys end up in the food supply.
The slaughter house is the place where horrible things can happen in-between their arrival and their death. We have the means to make sure animals are not just probably dead, but are definitely dead before their heads are removed or their veins/arteries are opened for bleeding.
When you get down to it, killing an animal is a brute process. Before mass slaughter, animals were killed one by one as well as could be managed by whoever was doing it. It wasn't always pretty,
This question is relatively trivial to the more pressing questions we have regarding our well-being - this issue is relatively minor. I would say it depends. It would be preferable if there was no meat eating, morally speaking. However, some people do need meat eating to function at top potential - for example athletes. The proteins that are found in meat are hard (though not impossible) to get elsewhere. If someone doesn't do any sports - I'd say morally speaking they should not eat meat (generally speaking - I can see exceptions even here).
It is objectively better for the environment and would help alleviate the symptoms of overpopulation. It takes much more land to support food animals than it does vegetation. The majority of crops currently being grown ends up as feed for animals. With more vegetation available, we have more to use to create reusable energy. But you tell people that, and they still don't care. World problems and the environment are problems that can be put off for now and they don't need to take direct responsibility for the situation.
But what about all the health benefits? With developed and developing countries faced with mounting health effects of obesity, diabetes, depression and inflammatory diseases. Eating meat is essentially on the spectrum of self-destructive behavior from suicide, drunk driving, drug addiction, anorexia and bulimia or smoking. Some of those things feel good, (just like eating meat), and may even have some temporary short-term benefits, but over the long term "natural selection" would weed out those with less healthy diets.
The problem with this approach - that of only being concerned with whether animals suffer or not - is that it seems applicable to humans too. That is to say if aliens rear humans under humane conditions and kill us for food with minimum suffering then killing humans for food would be morally permissible. We find this instinctively wrong. Perhaps we consider ourselves different from other animals - being intelligent and capable of great psychological suffering.
That makes me feel as if any and all killing is wrong even if suffering was reduced to a minimum. There's something seriously wrong with killing using whatever method.
No doubt, obesity and diabetes are past epidemic levels, but "meat eating" per se accounts for those as efficiently as too many refined carbohydrates and sugars. Too much fat? Yes, of both kinds, animal and plant derived (and too many hydrogenated fats as well). More protein than necessary? Most likely. I'm not sure where depression fits in here, and the same for inflammatory diseases. There is a connection between diet and inflammatory disease, not sure what it is.
http://harvardmagazine.com/2012/01/a-diabetes-link-to-meat
http://www.diabetes.org/diabetes-basics/myths/?referrer=https://www.google.ca/
Animal cruelty has the advantage of sentimental loading. (And sentiment does not trivialize the issue, it just adds another dimension.) Most of us personally commit no gratuitous animal cruelty. The cruelty is performed remotely. We can (and should) prefer that animals be treated well, but treating the chickens kindly doesn't solve the environmental problem. The environmental issue is approaching the level of an existential threat.
Quoting swstephe
Well... I think that was yesterday... Today, the problems of the environment are visibly coming home and roosting. It isn't "people" that seem not to care (though they should be more worried, and politically charged up, definitely). It's at the higher, larger decision making level that there are people who can't bring themselves to act positively on the problem. Take major shareholders in coal and oil: They may intellectually recognize that the planet is heading towards a worldwide disaster, but... closing down their mines. wells. and factories means the end to their wealth! That's very hard for them to do. It's easy for me to do, because I don't have a single oil well in my backyard. Not one. No coal mines, either, the last time I checked.
It's easy for me to tell people to stop driving and take the bus, bike, or walk. I don't drive (can't) so no problem. People who drive don't want to switch from 15 minutes to get to work to 90 minutes on a bus. I don't blame them. I hated those long bus rides intensely. In many cities (this one, among them) one can travel many routes faster on a bike than a bus.
Society has to make it easier for the average person to make the kind of decisions I think they know would be good. But those decisions are discouraged higher up by the auto industry, by the highway industry, by the fuel industry, all who are going to lose the cash cow if we make necessary changes.
Taking care of the environment (the land, plants, wild animals, food production, fresh water, domestic animals, ourselves, etc.) is an existential imperative. Millions of people are applying poisons to their lawns and gardens with no benefit beyond the cosmetic. Very bad, not moral. Hundreds of millions of acres of crops are being sprayed with herbicides and pesticides that are literally killing off the environment -- wild flowers, wild and domestic bees, birds, reptiles, frogs, toads, fish, etc. Very bad, not moral.
The real problem with eating beef and pork, especially, is global warming and environmental degradation (from intense feed-crop production). Animal production isn't the #1 cause -- that honor goes to fossil fuel. But it's a contributing cause.
I heard some rumors about inflammatory diseases. That may be indirect, since it seems a lot of it is related to being overweight. Vegetarian diets tend to make it easier to lose weight simply because there is less calories and more bulk/fiber.
I recently switched to vegetarian meals from my meal kit delivery service, (a good way to learn that vegetarian doesn't mean raw vegetables and salads). Then I got a fitbit and challenged myself to walk 5 miles, (7km) every day. On Saturdays, I try to double it and after a month, tripled it. I also limited my calorie intake to 1500 per day. I've lost 20 pounds, (8kg) and most of my inflammation problems disappeared, and my mood has improved a lot. It was probably a combination of several things, but I think a vegetarian diet is part of it.
It doesn't justify inflicting harm towards animals or the environmental damage the industry is said to cause, but it's a reason. It's also the reason why I personally am hoping lab grown meat becomes commercially viable sooner rather than later.
Regarding OP, if there was a way to eat meat without contributing to the suffering of animals I think most of the weight of the argument against meat eating dissipates. There's still the question of environmental sustainability but lab-grown meat is still in such an early stage of development it's rather difficult to predict the environmental impact it will have when produced on a large scale.
With regard to arguments about health, an argument about respecting the individual's autonomy likely takes precedence, even if it's proven that meat eating necessarily is detrimental to health (in all possible scenarios of meat-eating)
Of course, animals suffer whether meat is an item on the menu or not. No body is eating us, yet we suffer. Birds suffer. Mammals of all sorts suffer from non-human-caused events. Farm animals, were they freed and were they able to live on their own, would still suffer.
Decay and suffering, as the Buddha said, is inherent in all compounded beings.
Animals suffer because we are exposed to a frequently hostile environment of predation and disease, starvation, and injury.
The amount of suffering a cow, for instance, experiences in the course of its milking life is minimal. Cows are valuable and are taken good care of. At the end of their life they are hauled off to a slaughter house and killed. Their death is pretty quick. That beats the way many animals die in the wild, where predators begin chowing down on their prey before it is dead.
The environmental impact of animal consumption (meat, wool, milk, labor) has been with us for a long time. There was environmental damage from over-grazing by sheep/goats 3 millennia ago. 3 millennia later, goats are the least of it. Pigs, chickens, and cattle (and other animals) exist in huge numbers, and the burden of raising enough feed for them all constitutes a sort of over-grazing.
In addition to the land that is worked in order to produce animal protein, the guts of cattle produce a lot of methane (a more potent green house gas, but shorter lived than CO2). 1 cow we can tolerate; 1 million cows we can tolerate; 1 1/2 billion cows, maybe not.
How much meat are you eating on an average day? 1 serving, all kinds? 2 servings? 3? 1 serving is really all we need (in terms of diet for non-vegetarians). How big is your serving? 6 oz (170 gr.)? 4 (113 gr.)? 3 oz (85 gr.)? Maybe you are eating a lot more than you need?
Dairy products are a very useful source of nutrition for children all over the world, and for people of European extraction into adulthood. Calcium, protein, fat, and other nutrients can be obtained from sources other than milk, of course.
People who are well fed from childhood forward tend to be larger than people who have grown up eating minimal diets. When asians move to the United States, for instance, their children born here quite often grow up to be much bigger than them.
Do people have a right to eat the kind of food that allows them to grow to their full genetic potential?
Whether we consume more meat than we *need* is a separate issue. The OP only asks if meat eating is ethically permissible, I argue there is a possible scenario where it is. I don't dispute that as things stand now, meat eating is likely to be morally wrong, with the caveat that you could possible justify eating meat on some anthropocentric grounds (which I personally don't find convincing).
I've already stipulated for environmental arguments, lab grown meat should (though I can't say for certain) be able to do away with factory farming, which should also defuse most of the environmentalist argument.
Regarding your last point, it's a controversial stand to take either way if you believe that the health of the individual trumps his free will or that his free will trumps his health. However given the emphasis bioethics tends to place on autonomy, I'm more inclined to think autonomy would hold. (i.e. In the general case, individuals should have the choice to pursue a healthy lifestyle or not)
I am pointing at animal suffering as a given, whether we eat them or not. "Eating an animal" per se doesn't increase their suffering. Suffering is ubiquitous; a wild chicken, a free range chicken, and a factory farm chicken all suffer. They all die. Eating dead meat does not increase their suffering.
Quoting Sinderion
I'm not quite sure what you have in mind. In a way, factory farming IS lab grown meat. Do you suppose that these huge vats of cell cultures, growing away, are not going to require substantial inputs of nutrients and energy? Do you suppose that there will be no waste products from these big tanks? Billions of pounds of cell culture are engaging in the kind of metabolic activity that produces all sorts of waste products. There will be costs -- it won't be like, "ah, a free lunch at last."
They have produced a few ounces of lob meat; it was, I gather, not great but... "OK". I'd be fine with lab grown meat, but it probably won't compare with a real pork chop. Have you tried the full range of texturized vegetable protein meat substitutes? Some of them are moderately convincing and taste fairly good.
Quoting Sinderion
I don't see why health and autonomy would be in opposition.
Since animals necessarily suffer, regardless of whether humans interact with them or not, it is morally permissible to inflict suffering on animals.
There's a disconnect. On the one hand animals necessarily suffering is what happens, and I don't see how you've gotten to your conclusion that therefore it is ok for humans to cause their suffering.
I can't comment extensively on the environmental outcomes of lab grown meat that turns out commercially viable. But i dont see what's wrong with entertaining the possibility that it turns out to be at least better for the environment than factory farmed meat.
I've tried the meat substitutes that are readily available in my country. Either I must not know how to prepare them or they just taste horrible.
Not everyone values personal health above other other things. Like smoking, drinking, and eating meat. Given that someone chooses not to prioritise health over the enjoyment of meat, and given that the *only* issue with meat eating is a health detriment, at a level that's not comparable to smoking or drinking, is there any good reason to compel that person to give up meat eating?
But... Are we inflicting suffering on animals when we raise them in a humane manner, and then at some point, end their lives humanely?
Granted, there are ghastly ways of treating animals. Factory farming fits the definition of ghastly. Animals raised in these conditions most likely suffer stress, if not physical pain. Factory farming is used for no other purpose than to maximize profit with a minimum of expense. Somebody (the animals first) pays the price.
In a less intense regime of farming, where animals are not subjected to the conditions of factory farming, suffering can be minimized if not eliminated. Of course, traditional farming methods use more land, but it is used less intensively. Traditional farming can probably not produce the same quantity of meat as intense farming.
It's a trade off similar to what happens to workers in factories: Intense pursuit of profit, minimal expense, speed-up--all that--produces more suffering, and greater suffering. The solution to produce less suffering is to consume less production--buy fewer goods, eat less meat.
OR, we can automate the factory using robots to make things, or produce meat in tanks.
BTW, texturized vegetable protein extruded into a bin is not appealing. It has to be seasoned and combined with flavorful ingredients to taste good. I agree, at the point of production some of the vegetable protein substances are disgusting. Mock Duck, used in vegetarian asian dishes, is (I think) a wheat based product that is very chewy and tasty -- because of the sauce and seasoning. It doesn't taste like duck, exactly, but certainly not bad. Tofu is just untexturized vegetable protein.
Okay, sure. It's a reason, but it's still not a good one or a moral one.
This is one of those instances where I think the only appropriate answer is "I don't know." I don't know if it's possible for a chicken to prefer not having its life ended prematurely, or if a cow prefers not to be milked. I certainly don't know if all chickens prefer not having their lives ended prematurely etc. The problem I have with a lot of discussion about animal cruelty is the presumption that we do know what animals want, and that we can generalize about animals in a way that would be shouted down immediately if we were to apply that to humans.
Quoting Bitter Crank
I don't think I'm disagreeing too much with any of that. I do think it's easier to infer that animals suffer in factory farms from behavioural cues, though I'm sure Nagel would have a thing or ten to say about that. Really, when it comes to questions about what beings that are not human want, that also have no clear way of communicating their desires to us, I maintain agnosticism. Intuitively I would be kind of behaviourist but I don't think this position is strictly tenable (I have no good justification for behaviourism).
Quoting Bitter Crank
I'm aware of those options. I'm living in Asia. But like I said, I must not know how to cook "mock meat" because the few times I tried, it turned out awful. Though when I do buy food from dedicated vegetarian stalls, I'm generally not disappointed. Tofu was never a meat substitute for me, just another vegetable.
I do recall that human breast milk ice cream was a thing for a while. Gives whole new meaning to the term "milk shake"...
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-london-12569011
When I eat any other kind of meat I feel guilty.
I still do it. I just feel guilty about it.
My local environment since WW2 has been turned over to mainly wheat production, in a cycle that involves the utter dependancy on heavy machinery for deep ploughing and the use of chemical fertilisers, pesticides and herbicides. The result is the complete loss of all top soil for miles and miles all along the Southern coast of the UK. I more recent years, sheep have been increasingly introduced and eventually it is hoped that some of that topsoil- now at the bottom of the sea shall begin to recover.
The recovery of the environment has to include animals. If we cannot at least mimic the natural cycles of nature then we are doomed to destroy the earth.
It's the same in the midwestern part of the United States -- well, most parts of the US. Corn (maize), wheat, soybeans. On some fields, the energy input required exceeds the energy output per acre. Cheap fuel has made this possible, that and government support.
Topsoil run off is relatively easy to control (minimum tillage, abandoning fields that are too steep, contour and terrace formation, etc). Not that we are doing a good job, but we do uno how. Worse is the runoff of pesticides, herbicides, and fertilizers. There is a large and growing dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico from eutrofication (loss of dissolved oxygen) as a result.
Corporate farming pursues short term goals; fuck the future.
BTW, animals aren't required to return the nutrients of plants to the soil. Yes, animal shit is a very good fertilizer, but green manure (raw vegetation) works well too. That's partly the idea of minimum tillage -- leave the chaff on the field where it falls; don't plow the field; plant through the vegetative mat.
Hilly areas are well suited to grazing because such ground should absolutely not be plowed, and cattle do enrich the soil without adding chemicals. They just chew, digest, shit, and produce milk and meat. Raising cattle in feed lots served by huge grain fields is a less ecological solution. There are many hilly areas in the country (UK, too) where bovine grazing shouldn't cause too many problems. Sheep and goats are short grazers -- biting off plants close to the ground. Pigs are totally incompatible with grazing land -- their rooting around destroys pasturage and leads to erosion. Goats have the narrow advantage of eating a wider variety of plants -- things that cows won't gladly eat.
What I am in favor of is reducing the quantity of meat and milk products consumed. Modest consumption of meat and fresh milk is sustainable.
Thanks very much!
Well, that's mostly because there isn't much out there. There's not really anyone defending factory farming and the status quo.
Michael Pollins "omnivore's dilemma" is often cited. Steven Davis argues that we need to stick to large herbivores to reduce the overall number of killed animals, but his math doesn't work,out if you take a good look.
My personal favorites (in terms of amusement factor) are Kathryn George arguing that ethical vegetarianism is unfair to peoples who can't nutritionally or financially afford to be veg (she ignores ought implies can), and Donald Bruckner says vegetarianism is immoral because we should be eating roadkill (holy yuck).
The Animal Ethic Reader (Armstrong and Botzler) contains most of those articles.
Thank you very much, I have downloaded that ''Animal ethics reader''.
The arguments you mention seems to be quite bad. As someone which holds the position that being a vegetarian or a vegan is a moral obligation (I assumed it was your position, if I'm mistaken tell me), do you know of valuable/good arguments which defend that it is permissible to eat meat? By that I don't meat that factory farming is permissible, but that eating free range meat is, for instance.
I have not checked any research on that, but it seems at least plausible that very limited consumption of meat might be morally permissible to make efficient use of existing grasslands and deal with overpopulations of some wild animals.
Yes, I would defend the position that eating meat is immoral. At least for people who have reasonable access to plant-based alternatives.
The best counter arguments to vegetarianism include that (like all morality) it's circumstantial. So if you're on a deserted island, you can kill a chicken. But of course, how often are you stranded on deserted islands?
Also, it may be permissible to raise animals humanely and eat them once they've died of natural causes. Except that animal agriculture is so resource intensive that it's bad for the environment, and so it falls apart there.
Finally, it may be permissible to eat things like oysters that do not possess brains or much of a central nervous system, so they can't experience pain and suffering the way other animals do. Again, you just have arguments about pollution and resources wasted in those cases.
This is something I'm struggling with. It appears that I've developed a taste for meat. I was brought up on a non-vegetarian diet and continued to eat meat even after someone, with the noble intent of "converting" me, was kind enough to show how mercilessly animals are treated in farms and slaughterhouses.
These past few years I've been looking at meat on my plate differently. I like the taste of meat but I begin to imagine myself having my throat slit and then chopped up into little pieces that end up in a restaurant, then cooked and served to people who're joking and laughing as they eat my flesh and, lastly the utter humiliation of having to come out of somebody's ass as mush.
It's not just the fact that animals are killed. The utter absence of compassion of any kind. I mean non-vegetarisns are not even bad. They're worse.
I'm still non-veg which makes me worse than those I'm bitching about because at least I know and most non-vegetarians are totally unaware of what they're doing. When you wear a ring for long enough you don't feel it anymore.
This situation has to be changed. Yes, there are dietary requirements but look at exclusive carnivores like lions and tigers. They kill only when hungry. Surely being omnivorous our meat requirements are lesser than tigers and lions. The killing is disproportionate and exceeds daily dietary recommendations.
Some are of the view that lessening the pain of death a.k.a humane killing is a solution. Humane killing is presented as a response to those who want animal killings stopped. Does it make sense? The worth of a human being is not measured in terms of the degrees of suffering humans can endure. Life, in and of itself, has moral value. That's why murdering another human painlessly with, say, lethal injection won't earn you the judge's sympathy and lessen you sentence. Killing a person humanely still amounts to murder. How is it that the "humane" killing of animals is not murder?
This of course leads us to the issue of personhood. Animals are not persons and don't have rights. So we can kill them. Really? Do you really want to eat meat so badly that you want to continue cruelty and murder based on a technical point? It's like a person refusing to save a drowning child because, technically, that person isn't a trained lifeguard.
Non-vegetarianism is immoral. Stop eating meat. Please.
I agree with the throat slit part, I would dislike the 48 seconds of bleeding out. But the rest I am fine with. If y'all want to chew on my fat once I am dead, enjoy. Ideally, I would be eaten by a lion or a killer whale or something cool, but eaten by people sounds better than eaten by worms and fungus.
Quoting TheMadFool
This is true, but at least I am not way more compassionate with people. If someone wants to pay for me to live for the next 30 years, I will let them eat the 68 year old me (obviously if I am just trapped on a farm for 30 years in awful conditions, I change my mind).
Quoting TheMadFool
I think you are being hard on yourself. Don't we all know that plastic water bottles are terrible? But they are just so convenient :grimace: I think our aversion to inconvenience is surprisingly powerful. I guess that doesn't make it right.
Quoting TheMadFool
Have you read Bitter Crank's posts from 3 years ago (in this thread)? He makes some good points about heavily reducing our meat eating while ACTUALLY WORKING to ensure the living conditions are adequate. I get more upset with myself for not inspecting the living conditions of the food I eat, MORE than I worry about eating meat. But I can't disagree with the sentiment too much.
Quoting Artemis
I don't think you are going to get strong opposition to this position, and I don't think there will ever be a solid argument for eating meat the way we do in modern society. I would just say, we all have levels of immoral...is it immoral like disrespecting your parents or immoral like genocide?
I currently view my over-use of plastics as a more significant moral harm than my meat eating...but I can admit that both are flaws I should work on (but I just don't, I have tried to analyze myself, is it a type of cognitive dissonance? it feels like my brain understands the problem but my emotions are still undecided - I think I have some sort of hang-up - if the rest of the world is not making sacrifices, why should I? I guess with that attitude we will all go down together :grimace:).
You have it all figured out. :smile:
Your rhetoric is better than mine.
I just want to ask you something if you don't mind?
Are you vegetarian or non-vegetarian?
In either case do you have any reasons apart from meat being tasty?
Thanks.
Still a meat eater. ALL of my favorite foods/meals include meat. So mostly just wallowing in my hypocrisy similar to you. But for some reason I don't feel the need to beat myself up over it...? But when I truly think about it, I don't have much of a defense. My main defense other than tasty probably amounts to "well it's not that bad, right?" Also, FOR ME (I get this won't be enough for many), if the animals lives are pleasant right up to the point of death (I think Temple Grandin was mentioned at the beginning of the thread), and the death is painless (and not seeing it coming would be an added bonus), then I don't see a moral harm as I would volunteer for that situation.
So one one pan of the scale is, to keep it simple, the death of an animal and on the other is "just" how meat titillates your tastebuds?
So a life gone just for a few seconds (how long do you chew?) of tastebud stimulation?
There is greatness I think if one can give even that fleeting second of pleasure to another being. Even if that means spending an entire life in a cage and then being killed.
Ok
Quoting TheMadFool
The options for livestock is life, reproduce, death or life, death and discontinued existence. The only moral issue is how the livestock are treated while they're alive. Vegetarians would be better off buying meat which was produced with higher ethical standards and supporting the companies that produce it. Life involves reproducing and death and natural death entails pain just as unnatural death does. Lament the living conditions of the animals yes, decrying their "murder" lacks understanding.
[quote=Martin Neimoller]First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a socialist.
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.[/quote]
Not quite the quote I want but it'll suffice to get a part of what I want to say across.
The edited version is below:
[quote=Martin Neimoller]
First they came for the fishes, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a fish.
Then they came for the birds, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a bird.
Then they came for the chimpanzees, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a chimpanzee.
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.[/quote]
Still not what I really want to say but it'll do.
Do you think there are aliens out there?
Who's eating wild birds and chimpanzees? Fish are a problem, I actually find the situation very sad and I don't really eat fish besides what's bred in farms. I used the term livestock many times in what you've quoted, the sustainability of livestock is not a problem, don't you worry, we won't have to resort to cannibalism anytime soon.
You would first need an agreeable and documented starting point for morality. In the offshoots of second-temple judaism that support axiomatic theology, eating meat is kosher or halal, if the jurisprudential requirements and procedures of religious law have been satisfied, the details of which can be examined and assessed by sufficiently-trained religious scholars.
The problem with this vein of argument is that it's currently impossible to produce nearly as much meat "ethically" as would be required to provide a significant part of the global population with meat. Buying meat produced with "higher ethical standards" is really only possible for a small group of wealthy people. Everyone else either has to be vegetarian or buy mass produced meat.
Though demands are increasing, I don't know if what you're saying is true or not and even if it were true, it's irrelevant. Unconcerned meat-eaters will buy whatever product, if there's no market for meat which is being handled ethically then it will be harder for businesses that choose to operate that way to justify doing so. Many cruelties that livestock suffer really come down to laziness and lack of care rather than a choice to favour productivity over animal care.
Each would-be vegetarian can analyse the situation for themselves and decide what their truth is but if they can't buy meat which is handled ethically then meat is just too expensive for them to buy. The would-be vegetarian would surely support laws which forced the meat industry to treat their animals with care. In which case, all meat would increase in price due to increases in costs. If in that situation, you can't afford meat then it's a luxury you can't afford but that doesn't make you a vegetarian.
1. Meat is a necessary part of the human diet
Ok but we kill and consume more than we actually need
2. We can eat meat as long as the animals are reared in comfortable environments and then killed humanely
[i]can I take a human child, raise it in a comfortable home and then kill him/her humanely?
No![/i]
3. Animals are not persons
Ok. a brain damaged person can be eaten
Quality post... would vote post of the year.
A little shuffling and we get:
would post vote of the year :rofl:
If one immoral act justifies others, where and how do you draw the line?
Also, eating meat is worse than plastics, because it combines the environmental worries of the latter with the direct harms to individual creatures of the former.
I think the "everyone else is doing it, so why can't I?" argument is wrong on multiple accounts. What do you mean by "rest of the world"? Do us vegans and vegetarians not belong to the world? And do I really need to point out the old "if the rest of the world jumped off a bridge...." example? Furthermore, vegetarianism isn't so much a sacrifice as a reorientation. You learn to cook and eat different foods that are usually better for you and actually are much more flavorful.
Cheeseburgers, turkey, chicken, tuna, catfish, beef, tilapia, crab, sushi, pork, buffalo, alligator, rabbit, crayfish, lobster, froglegs, deer, STEAK, MMHMM IT'S GOOD.
We are humans...we are ALL consistently committing immoral acts FROM SOME VIEWPOINT. Even my own personal morality is impossible to live up to. If morality is how we ought to behave then EVERY time I get upset, or am rude to another human, or squash an ant, I have behaved immorally. I do recognize these actions as needing improvement, but I don't consider myself an awful person despite acting 'immorally'. And what line? That seems too black and white for me.
It seems yourself and @TheMadFool view morality far more personally than I do. I also seem to be more of a consequentialist. If I am concerned about the morality of meat-eating, it is because I am concerned about the suffering of millions of animals. I am not concerned about my personal 'salvation' or 'enlightenment'. If I NEVER eat meat from now until my death, but the status quo of meat eating continues...then my choice to NOT eat meat was NEITHER good or bad as it accomplished nothing. It did not alleviate suffering. In that case it was only 'moral' in relations to my feelings of personal enlightenment.
Where do you get the idea that I am worried about "salvation" or "enlightenment"? I mean, the former is ridiculous, because I'm an atheist and I don't believe in salvation, and the latter is a term used in two ways: spiritual and intellectual. Again, as an atheist I reject spiritualism. So these words are just projection on your part.
I would argue that intellectual enlightenment is the path to vegetarianism, though, and not the end goal of it. I.e., when I am more aware of the moral implications of my actions, and realize what I can do to change, I follow through with correct action.
If you really are a consequentialist and only care about the suffering of animals, then why have all this self-justification about how we all are immoral sometimes? You have to draw the line somewhere, no matter how black and white you think that is, because otherwise you're on route to justifying the Holocaust and slavery.
Quoting ZhouBoTong
Again, nobody here said someone was an awful person for eating meat. Again, projection.
Just a hunch. You seemed to be talking about immorality as something we can eliminate vs a subjective opinion. Being perfectly moral sounds like enlightenment or salvation ideas to me. It seems nonsensical from a non-mystical viewpoint...similar to recent threads where people are trying to eliminate belief.
Quoting Artemis
Wait, if 'enlightenment' is a real thing there could be no more 'end goal' right? So it would not be a path to something else. Am I thinking too buddhist? Is there another concept of personal enlightenment I should be looking into?
Quoting Artemis
That is why I said "MORE of a consequentialist" not 100% consequentialist.
Quoting Artemis
TheMadFool was calling himself an awful person for eating meat...can you stop projecting my projections :razz:
Quoting Artemis
Huh? Black and white? My argument? It is arguing that it is all grey areas more than anything. You are the one trying to "draw lines". Please highlight any argument I ever present that you view as justification for the holocaust and slavery. Am I wrong to assume it is obvious that meat eating is not as bad as slavery or the holocaust?
Quoting ZhouBoTong
Nobody is talking about being "perfect."
Quoting ZhouBoTong
Yes, and I already pointed that out. Ever heard of the Age of Enlightenment? Has nothing to do with Buddhists.
Quoting ZhouBoTong
But I wasn't. So talk to the right person about that quibble.
Quoting ZhouBoTong
See this sort of contradicts your other statement suggesting morality is a "subjective opinion." What is it now? Is the Holocaust actually bad or is that just your "opinion"?
Here's the real problem with moral relativism (the idea that morality is just "opinions"), it's too egocentric. It worries too much about me and my opinion. It tends to ignore the whole problem: there are actual beings suffering. That's objectively true. The cow being torn away from her baby doesn't give a hoot about my "opinion." The turkey who's legs are literally breaking under her unnatural weight doesn't care about my "opinion." The hen getting her beak cut off while she is alive and aware doesn't care about my "opinion."
In the age of Enlightenment, "enlightenment" is no more than humanism right? The idea that humans can use their brains to solve problems? I can see how some of the times you used it, this version of enlightenment could be applied. But that type of enlightenment is not some destination to be reached, which was strongly implied through much of our discussion on the subject.
Quoting Artemis
It is my opinion. It also happens to be the opinion of MOST people. But "objective" morality doesn't really make sense. What makes it objective? Don't like half of all philosophy people view morality as largely subjective? I am not saying I am right, but it doesn't seem that outlandish?
Quoting Artemis
I would put a rather LARGE gap between "all morals are subjective" and "moral relativism". Moral relativism pushes the idea that I CANNOT judge another person's morals because it is all just relative to their situation. On the other hand, I feel comfortable judging other people's morals (at least to some extent) based on my subjective opinion (which may be based on certain objective facts). I think one can be a moral subjectivist without being a moral relativist (@Terrapin Station, does that seem right to you? Artemis, I included Terrapin because he seems to be the ultimate subjectivist around here, so if he disagrees, I should - but might not, haha - accept I am wrong on subjectivism vs relativism).
Strongly implied by whom? Not me. I've consistently said it's a means and not an end.
Quoting ZhouBoTong
I don't think "half of all philosophy people" (whatever that means? us here? academics? anyone who's ever had a deep thought?) view morality as subjective. But I haven't seen a poll either way. However, it's immaterial because it's an ad populum. People believing X doesn't make X true.
Quoting ZhouBoTong
Moral relativism is an umbrella term that covers subjectively, culturally, historically, class-specifically, and all the other kinds of relativist views of morality. Most commonly people are referring to the first two.
However, if, as you say, you think a subjectivist could judge someone else for their actions, I don't see on what basis. I think at most you could be sort of aesthetically turned off by those actions, but your own metaethical position maintains that there is no objective morality and therefore that there is no objective standard to which to hold the other person, and you can't really hold another person to your personal subjective standard.
It doesn't matter what kind of relativism or subjectivism you're talking about, my critique remains thereof.
It's all focusing way too much on you, and not giving hardly any attention to the person/s being harmed.
To the to be murdered cow, to the molested child, to the beaten woman, to the tortured slave it really doesn't matter what your "subjective opinion" is. They would just prefer you get around somehow, someway to leaving them the heck alone.
In a few words, if possible, could you describe why it is valid to call the atrocities against animals "unethical", instead of calling them "unkind"?
What element in ethics do the tortures breach? I am equally as abhored by these events as you are, but why call them unethical, instead of unkind?
What is the very point in ethics that you feel the unkind actions go against?
Please give me some answers, because I am confused. I see no problem with ethics, but huge problems of unkind behaviour.
I am puzzled as to why you think acting with kindness and acting ethically in this case are distinct things.
Unkind is a weasel word, for quite a few reasons. I'll focus on one for now: it covers both neutral and mean actions. If I'm minding my own business and, say, just enjoying my yard for a few minutes, I'm not being kind to anyone in particular, but I'm not being mean either. If I'm in my yard and find a kitten and start stabbing it with a pitchfork, I'm just being downright nasty and thus unkind.
I think unkindness and unethical form a Venn diagram. Most unethical things are unkind and most unkind things are unethical. As petrichor points out, in the case of torture. Unless you have some superrogatory moral reason to be unkind, unkindness is (probably always) unethical.
Like it's unkind to lie, but it's more important to save the Jews in your attic and therefore you should lie to the Nazis when they come knocking.
We need to rethink the entire relationship between meat and humans who consume them.
Proponents of veganism point to the ethical transgression of killing another life that is, if really thought about, unnecessary. To the extent that I am aware meat is just a convenient source of protein. Meat protein is in forms easier for our bodies to absorb and utilize. Ergo, eating meat is an indefensible position because we can always get our proteins from other sources like plants.
Perhaps being exposed as a victimizer - killing and eating helpless animals - is not enough to convince some who, in this context, either think there's no immorality in consuming meat or simply don't care.
For such people I'd like to offer a different kind of argument. It's a bit twisted like a Night Shyamalan movie but may be suited for those who aren't convinced by the usual veganism arguments against meat consumption. I'll offer two such arguments below:
1. Everyone knows about parasites - protozoan and worms. Some of these parasites have a life-cycle that spans more than one organism e.g. the tapeworm (pig-human). It could be that our taste for meat originates in and is perpetuated by parasites that are lodged in our bodies only so that their life-cycle can be completed. I have no proof of this but I'll post a video on how parasites may alter behavior and non-vegetarians can decide whether or not they're zombies, just their to serve as hosts for a hitherto undiscovered parasite.
2. Evolutionarily speaking, animals that are consumed seem to be successful. Cows, sheep, pigs are not, quite oddly, on the endangered species list. It appears that humans are a means to the survival of their species. This is a win-win situation so may actually convince non-vegetarianism but do you want to be used in this way, like a sex-toy if you really think?
However, don't forget the parasite that is the ultimate winner in this game. Humans lose because they become immoral. The cows, sheep, pigs and other animals lose because they live miserable lives. It's the as yet undiscovered parasite that has both its hosts in prime condition.
So, non-vegetarians need to really think, if not satisfied with being called victimizers, will they avoid meat if they knew they were the victims?
Either way, it seems to expose a moral failure in humans in general, not only non-vegetarians.
Please note; I am a non-vegetarian.