Ethics of Vegetarianism/Meat Eating
I'd be interested to hear people's thoughts on this.
I am familiar with some of the views of people like Peter Singer and others in the more utilitarian tradition who advise against eating meat on the basis of it creating unnecessary suffering and killing. Personally, I do eat meat - and it seems like any defense of eating meat is necessarily speciesist - i.e. it elevates and considers humans as just inherently more important than other animals. It seems funny to me than an accusation of someone being a "speciest" (sp?) is considered a serious accusation.... if the choice was between saving 10 people or 10 cows are we really going remain indifferent about it?
Personally I certainly do believe we owe certain ethical duties to animals (decent treatment and no cruelty above all else) and if we are to kill them for food or perhaps euthanasia it should be as painless as possible.
Anyway I'm interested in hearing others thoughts about this matter.
I am familiar with some of the views of people like Peter Singer and others in the more utilitarian tradition who advise against eating meat on the basis of it creating unnecessary suffering and killing. Personally, I do eat meat - and it seems like any defense of eating meat is necessarily speciesist - i.e. it elevates and considers humans as just inherently more important than other animals. It seems funny to me than an accusation of someone being a "speciest" (sp?) is considered a serious accusation.... if the choice was between saving 10 people or 10 cows are we really going remain indifferent about it?
Personally I certainly do believe we owe certain ethical duties to animals (decent treatment and no cruelty above all else) and if we are to kill them for food or perhaps euthanasia it should be as painless as possible.
Anyway I'm interested in hearing others thoughts about this matter.
Comments (121)
I think of ethics as a social contract for the most part, so with animals their are obvious limits to what kind of social contract you can make with them. I think most ethics are beyond most animals and so its not going to be an ethical social contract.
Ive always found it strange when animal rights people talk about the suffering from farms and human consumption of meat. Do they not realise the suffering that exists in the natural world? Its a non-stop horror show of pain, suffering and death. Mothers eat their babies, predators eating prey alive, agonising poisons and neurotoxins that paralyse followed by being eaten alive, females killing mates after copulation...ever see a cat play with its prey? Its torture for fun, whenever they can. Rape, infanticide, homicide, torture...all par for the course. Horrific crimes by human standards and thats the point, by human standards. Ethics. Whatever animals got going on it aint ethics, so what kind of social contract can you make with them? Well they all seem to have a solid grasp on the food chain...
Having said that, science has shown a pretty wide spectrum of cognition in animals in the last decade or two. I think its pretty clear some animals are capable of an ethical social contract more advanced than us eating them. Although dolphins are an animal noted for it high or human like intelligence and I read rape is very common amongst dolphins so maybe ethics really are a uniquely human thing. Its hard to tell.
Quoting 180 Proof
Considering we evolved as omnivores, early human diet consisted of things that we didn't have to wait for, this was so we can breed the best possible outcomes for survival. Once we started to develop as a species, so did our plant based diets.
Once we were able to afford to try certain plants to see if they were edible started a domino effect in my opinion. Ever since then we slowly changed into a species of hunter/gatherer/farmers. While our meat eating habits have become extremely inhumane, we have developed plants into something amazing for humanity.
We are at the point as a society that the negatives about meat have started to outweigh the benefits. I think as the highest mode of consciousness on this planet, leaves for us a responsibility to correct any errors we may have caused along the way. I believe there is nothing wrong with eating meat, but i do believe it is wrong to eat meat that you don't have a personal connection to / give the appropriate respect to while killing/preparing/eating. maybe in the future there will be reform to where people enjoy meat responsibly without repercussions.
I'm being a tad tongue-in-cheek as far as this next argument but that is not to say it (intentionally) has no philosophic value, if not just for the sake of debate. How do we know plants and the like don't feel pain? Because it cannot be observed by our primitive senses or measured by a field constantly being proved wrong? Because they have no pain receptors or 'brain' that conforms to our feeble understanding of our own? Let's think about it. Plants have been around tremendously longer than the first human. They have quite the headstart so to speak. Studies show plants can not only communicate with eachother but respond differently to music, rock vs. classical for example. The Venus flytrap can somehow keep count of how many times its been touched and therefore when to react and many plants can successfully navigate through a maze in pitch black darkness. 'The Happening' proposes the concept. Or take 'Life After Humans'. Scientists say plants would inevitably overtake cities if not kept at bay and with enough time, and of course other natural processes, would be like they never existed. If all humans disappeared right now. Plants would not only be fine but dominate. If all plants disappeared right now, animals would die, the food chain would collapse, and one could assume so would humanity.
As far as the things I've mentioned plants can 'do' they can, and admittedly probably are, just basic cellular functions and reactions to stimuli. Suppose I was just looking to plug an episode of a show I like that proposes the concept. For entertainment/humor (or perhaps even some deeper thought on the subject, though unlikely) of the community. "Tales from the Darkside - Love Hungry". Sometimes I take the devil's advocate thing a little too far. I'll stop. :)
To my mind, this means that there isn't some moral duty on us never to use or eat other animals, but there IS a moral duty to consider the circumstances. For someone such as myself, it is not particularly difficult to choose not to eat meat and hopefully that choice results in less pain and suffering. So that is my choice.
Why do you find that strange? There is no actual contradiction there, after all. In my experience, most animal rights people tend to agree that nature is a horror show of pain and suffering.
Taking a moral position based on valuing one type of life above another seems shaky to me. With that said, there's a point to be made that in the practice of sustaining ourselves, we should seek to minimize the suffering we impose on other lifeforms.
Well it seems strange to save an animal from suffering by ensuring it will suffer. Frying pan or fire? And thats besides the fact that most animals cannot make an ethical social contract. Its protecting an animal from suffering and death by sending it off to..suffering and death. (Presumably the alternative to being a farm animal is living in the wild). That doesnt seem odd to you?
Take vegans and vegetarians. In order to grow the food they eat, animals still have to be slaughtered en masse. Those fields of fruits or veggies result in countless deaths and plenty of suffering from displacement and starvation. If you want to say rodents and insects dont count or count less, then you are making the exact same calculus a meat eater is making. The moral high ground held by vegans or vegetarians is an illusion.
But practically no one ever suggests such a thing. The alternative to suffering of farmed animals is obviously not freeing them to starve in the wild, but not breeding them in the first place. That's a basic false dichotomy.
Quoting DingoJones
Sure, production of plants results in animals dying en masse. No one seriously thinks that's not the case. How or why would that eliminate the moral high ground?
I was comparing the suffering experienced by farm animals to the suffering of animals in the wild. Thats not a dichotomy, its a comparison. Not breeding them in the first place is a fair point but doesnt address what to do with the ones that have been bred already.
Also, regardless of what we do with the current stock of farm animals doesnt change the fact that animals, anywhere, live harsh and short lives that end in various horrific deaths. Thats the point I was making. There is no significant ethical difference between the suffering of farm animals and the suffering of animals in general. It IS strange, as under your paradigm one should be out rescuing animals from the wild as well.
Quoting zookeeper
Well isnt preventing suffering what grants the moral highground? Suffering isnt being prevented by not eating meat, in fact id say that it causes more suffering just by the sheer numbers of individual suffering (unless you want to claim those lives are less significant somehow, but again that is the exact same calculus a meat eater is making).
Also, you said “practically no one ever”...aren’t there organisations like PETA that rescue animals and release them back to the wild? Maybe Im assuming “rescue” to mean release to the wild, but Im sure i e heard of animals being rescued from factory farms and such.
You specifically said that the alternative to animals suffering on farms is the animals suffering in the wild. And it's obviously not, since those animals wouldn't exist in the wild in the first place. This is what you said:
Quoting DingoJones
That's clearly saying that you think animal rights people want to take animals from farms and send them into the wild (where they would then suffer considerably). And that's an absurd claim. I'm sure you can find a teenage activist or few who genuinely want to free all the chickens into the wild, but everyone knows that's not representative at all.
Quoting DingoJones
I don't know, have you ever asked someone that directly? What did they answer?
Quoting DingoJones
Of course there is no difference, suffering is suffering. Does someone disagree with your point? I'm aware that perhaps even most people consider it somehow worse if a human intentionally inflicts suffering than it is for that same amount of suffering to occur "naturally", but they still don't think that suffering in nature isn't bad.
Quoting DingoJones
Sure, anyone who says we should only do something about human-inflicted suffering but not wild animal suffering is wrong. On that I'll happily agree. Anyway, my personal paradigm is very different than what you probably think; I'm just pointing out how you seem to have misconceptions about people advocating plant-eating.
Quoting DingoJones
That doesn't make any sense. How does plant-eating cause more suffering than meat-eating? It causes some, obviously, but if you make an esoteric claim such that it causes more suffering or suffering to more individual creatures, then surely you have some kind of rationale for that. What is it?
The concern about crop-related deaths is a good point, but ultimately fails I think for several reasons. The first is that a lot of crops are grown to feed animals, so eliminating animal farming would also reduce the number of animals suffering, both directly and indirectly. Second, we don't really know how many animals ARE being killed in crops. It probably is far fewer than you think (as long as we ignore insects, that is). And lastly, consider that pretty much all of us eat plants. In fact, for a healthy diet, something like about 60-80% of our calories should come from plants. That is a shared cost - in other words, vegans and non-vegans are eating those, so it follows that the vast majority of all animals killed in cropping are killed by non-vegan consumption.
Now, we could look to fix that, and if the world had a vegan agricultural system then we would aim to do that. In the meantime, there is no avoiding the shared cost. What's left then is the cost we CAN avoid - the animals farmed/caught for food. On average, a non-vegan will cause the death of somewhere between 50 and 100 animals per year. As meat is mostly consumed for protein, we could replace that meat with protein crops such as peas/beans/lentils etc. To replace the proportion of protein from animals in the diet would require about one tenth of a hectare per year. If wild animal deaths are say 50 per hectare per year (almost certainly an exaggeration), the the vegan will cause the death of an additional 5 animals (over and above the shared cost baseline). Compared to the 50-100 of the non-vegan.
Of course, the non-vegan can get around this by only eating range grazed beef, and thereby causing the death of perhaps one or two animal each year directly. But that is a bit of an uncertain claim because we don't know the true quantum of crop-related deaths (what if it is just five per hectare per year) and we are ignoring the deaths related to beef production (eg predator control).
I was referring to the amount of lives lost/suffering. Insects and rodents are more enumerate than farm animals. Insects and rodents can co-exist with animal farm fields. Thats not the case with crops, the insects and rodents are wiped out or displaced (and most die). So many many times more individual lives and suffering result from a crop field. Ergo, if we are measuring the suffering of individuals we see there are more individuals suffering from the footprint of the crops than the animal farming. By a landslide really.
Just because you don’t understand something doesnt mean it doesnt make sense. I dont mind clarifying, I simply thought you understood the huge numbers difference in individual lives. My mistake, hopefully its clear what I meant now.
You will need to offer some actual numbers to back up your claim that the loss of animals from the proportion of crops to replace meat is astronomical when compared to the number of animals we kill/catch each year. I agree that generally speaking, cattle grazing on open range is relatively harm free and can be ecologically preferable, but we aren't talking about the impact of ALL crops grown for food versus just range grazed cattle. See my comment above.
I understand, Im familiar with vegan arguments.
Quoting Graeme M
Well in your first post you excluded insects. I was including them in my measure of individual lives.
So just to clarify: you personally value the lives and suffering of, say, a beetle and a cow equally (or, alternatively, that you believe a beetle and cow are equally capable of suffering)? That your ethical judgement if you see someone squash a cat with a bat is more or less the same as when you see someone squash a mosquito?
Pardon my non-philosophical response, but I don't think you can seriously expect anyone to believe that that is your actual position. Yet your whole argument seems to hinge on that.
My concern isnt to reduce suffering, thats the concern of vegans/animal rights folk. Im talking about in what way operating from that stance leads to inconsistency.
Anyway, once you decide insects arent to be included as suffering creatures you are making the same calculus as a meat eater, arbitrarily drawing the line at insects the way a meat eater might draw the line at dogs, or monkeys. Thats problematic for what I hope are obvious reasons.
I was pointing out an inconsistency that arises from the vegan/animal rights premiss of reducing suffering. Reducing suffering is not my own basis of morality, nor a metric I would use to defend/attack animal rights.
It's not an inconsistency unless one believes that beetles and cows are capable of equal amounts of suffering, or that their lives somehow matter equally much. You don't believe it, animal rights people don't believe it, so no one's being inconsistent.
I'm curious, what metric would you propose? Mind you, the original discussion was in relation to vegetarianism, extended to veganism. Neither is essentially about animal rights as far as I know.
Quoting zookeeper
I think this is pertinent to both of our discussions. I think that deciding bugs dont count is the same as deciding certain animals dont count. Graeme mentioned that he had empirical reasons, and I would agree there is probably some sort of spectrum to consciousness and levels of suffering. However, I dont think that all the animals vegans/animal rights folk believe shouldnt be eaten are going to be shown by science to have anything like the human ethics or suffering. I think some will, and based on suffering as a metric we shouldn't (ethically speaking) eat those animals. That would be consistent with the premiss of suffering as the metric.
Yes, this would be shifting the discussion. Thats why im arguing from the same basis of using suffering as the metric, I recognise my own views on ethics/morality to be idiosyncratic and unless the discussion is about moral epistemology it probably wouldnt be helpful to insert my own views.
To answer your question, Im more of social contract theory guy and dint see much merit to principal based ethics or avoiding suffering as the basis for morals/ethics.
It is a serious enough accusation, but not from those who claim the categorization of animals is their primary focus of value and emphasis, in other words those who strived to be less discriminatory than humanists, but from those who favor being more discriminatory than humanists, and so are open about their primary focus of value and emphasize being categorizations within the human species.
An animalist could rightly claim that a meat eating humanist's value system arbitrarily focuses on his own species, but it's not much of a criticism coming from one who also has an arbitrary value system.
A species is a breeding type, meaning it's the total of all individuals who have genes which are compatible with each others' in terms of breeding. That the human species is composed of groups that have less genetic divergence than many other notable species isn't necessarily and argument in favor of valuing it as a collective entity in a way that discourages divergence through universal ethical standards.
One could argue that a healthy species is a more diverse species and so advocate uneven ethical standards to achieve that purpose.
When you word it that way, people's attention will be immediately drawn to the difference - people vs cows - which will most likely bring out our prejudices with predictable results.
If one tries to find out why we balk at hurting our own kind we reach the conclusion that it all has to do with the ability to feel pain and suffer. Ergo your question, for the issue at hand, should be "if the choice was between saving 10 living things that can feel pain and 10 other living things that can also feel pain are we really going to remain indifferent about it?"
That said, most people will be more surprised and maybe even offended by what I just said than by what you seem to be implying - that speciesism is somehow justified. I chalk that up to some form of primitive instinct in individuals the purpose of which is the survival of the species as a whole.
I think it's more than that. Especially in the case of killing, you're ending that being's potential. Humans have potential, cows don't. It's not just about ability to feel pain. Closely related to potential is cognitive and creative abilities.
Well, if you want to talk about potential then may I remind you that, according to biology, we humans evolved into our current form from ape-ancestors. How do we know, cows, likewise, don't have the potential to be human-like in terms of whatever potential you believe makes us not killable/comestible?
I'm not really talking about the species I'm talking about the individual.
Aren't you talking about humans?
When we make moral decisions in the real world we're dealing with actual, flesh and blood beings in the here and now. In the current reality that we face humans have that potential that we don't see in cows.
But the notion of potential transcends what you call "current reality" for potential is always about what could be in the future. Just as a human's potential lies in the future, so too a cow's potential.
Isn't there also the potential that the cows turn into an extremely intelligent, powerful species and wage war on the humans? Shouldn't we get a head start on that and eliminate them then?
I'm not sure about that.
This is why you don't base your practical ethics on some possibility which may arise in 10 million years which wouldn't involve any of the participants of the ethical scenario.
Humans are killing each other and the odd fact is we are the only extant life forms, apart from sharks, hippopotami, wild bufallo, the occasional crocodilian, capable of that. We are our own worst enemy. It must be that we're not ready yet to ascend to the next rung in morality where animal welfare becomes important. Some have though - vegans and vegetarians for example - and it would be very interesting to speculate on how things pan out in the future. Will we see animal rights become a reality or will the killings continue?
Potential to do what exactly? Are you really going to base a system of ethics on any given individual's ability to "potentially" create a Mona Lisa or an Etude in C Minor? Or is your bar a little lower than that?
The reason I ask is because I do not see a bar of potentiality that would be able to encompass all of the humans we'd want to protect, including all mentally and physically disabled persons, that would not simultaneously encompass cows.
Potential to make the world a better place, to form positive connections/relationships, potential to create something beautiful, etc.
Maybe we run into problems with this standard when it comes to the very severely disabled - maybe. Even if someone has a disability that doesn't make them useless. Sure a mentally disabled person isn't going to be the next Einstein but focus on the things s/he can do. Even if someone's in a coma maybe they have the potential to become better.
Dingo, I am not sure of your stance as described there - are you agreeing that when we are reasonably confident that another animal can experience pain and suffering, we shouldn't eat them?
Cows can and do do all that.... Especially when you're willing to include the betterment abilities of severely disabled and comatose people into your ethical scope here.
We do owe ethical duties to animals. I just think that treating cows or frogs as having the exact same value as humans is insane. In theory it might sound great, but what it would practically translate into is that if we had to make a choice between saving 100 humans or 100 frogs we'd remain totally indifferent.
Once you accept that it's now just a matter of finding some way to justify it, if there is one.
Well I wouldnt agree with that no, because I wouldnt use suffering as the metric.
If you do use suffering as a metric then I think there is a spectrum and not a simple meat or veggie dichotomy. To be consistent, I think rather than being measured by whether its an animal or a veggie you would have to measure whats ethical to eat by the mental capacities of each thing you consider eating. I dont think that all meat would be entirely excluded in that calculus, we would find some meats (maybe alot) that would be ok to eat. It would depend on what “ability to experience suffering” standards are being used but the calculus is the same regardless and thats why I dont think vegans or vegetarians have the moral high ground they think they do.
This sounds very vague. What meats specifically? What vegetarians specifically? I've been finding it incredibly difficult to actually apply your criticisms.
For example, there are a lot of vegetarians that don't mind eating eggs... some, don't eat eggs, not because the egg suffers, but because the hen that lays it does. It sounds to me these are actual examples of applications of the principles you prescribe. Or are you talking about the morality of eating termites? Without some actual specific critiques, it's hard to find, well, an actual critique here.
As another example, you did discuss the "bug suffering" thing in raising crops, but that sounds suspicious, because those farmed animals eat crops too; so I'm not quite sure how you can argue that it's "more" or "equivalent" suffering to eat said crops versus to feed them to farmed animals and eat them (especially since I don't quite see eating, using a rough metric, a pound of crop as being equivalent, in terms of mere crop related "harm", to eating a pound of farmed animal that was fed crops... surely it takes raising much more crops to make that pound of farmed animal than it does just eating that amount).
I feel like ive answered this...the meat that meets the thresholds of suffering being used to decide what's ok to eat and whats isnt. The vegetarians im referencing have been the ones that dont eat meat because it causes suffering to the animal providing the meat and ones that think hey have the moral high ground for not eating meat. (Two different references for two different points but those are the two types of vegetarians Ive referred too.
But I don't see any inconsistency, even here:
Quoting DingoJones
Such vegetarians draw a line arbitrarily, but it's a false equivalence to say that this makes it the same exact calculus, because said vegetarians factually would eat less kinds of things than the people they claim to hold the moral high ground over. To say this is the exact same calculus is to commit a fallacy of the heap. Your "obvious reasons", to me, sound more like rationalizations; irrational ones at that.
As for your social contract theory, I think that's a miss as well. We cannot hold social contracts with non-humans, so... it makes sense to say not hold court trials for the atrocities of cats against the suffering they cause mice. But certainly that doesn't prohibit us from making social contracts with humans against abusive behaviors for pets. If you think we can do that, then shouldn't we be able to likewise make social contracts with humans to avoid eating meat? And if you don't, why not? If it's the latter, I haven't seen an argument for it from you in this thread.
The real problem here is that I have to invent what I think are fictitious vegetarians to be targets of your criticisms. For example, regarding those who are concerned with just minimizing overall suffering who apparently don't realize suffering exists in nature, what specific thing do such vegetarians do that make them morally culpable? For a non-vegetarian example, if I were a doctor am I compelled to stay awake, working myself to exhaustion, to save lives, given I can? Back to the vegetarians, are they likewise compelled to, say, save caterpillars from Ichneumon wasps? What sort of actual moral criticisms (using actual vegetarian moral systems) are you advancing?
I don't think you have answered that in this thread, at least none I can comprehend. What you have presented, at least to me, seems like a bunch of fuzziness and false equivalences.
This seems to point in the right direction. Broadly then we could see an endorsement for vegan ethics in regard to animal farming - that is, those animals which can feel pain and suffer would be those we'd owe the greater duty to. Wouldn't the typical farmed animal fall within that scope? And as I mentioned earlier, we have some reasonably sound empirical grounds for excluding insects from that duty which would free us from particular concerns about insects as individuals. That would mean we can happily eat insects and kill them in crop farming (with the same caveat as earlier - for example, a broader ethical duty to insects as species and members of the ecosystem).
Just as an aside, is there a particular objection to folk seeking the higher moral ground? I'm not sure I'd advocate for chasing the lower moral ground!!
Animal Sacrifice & Universal Care
My 'conversion' to a plant-based diet occurred many years ago and was ethically based. It came about by way of the simple recognition and acknowledgment that, while many animals cannot live without eating other animals, human beings can. For us, eating animals is a choice—neither our health nor our well-being depend on us eating meat or dairy; in fact, for optimum health, research strongly supports a plant-based diet. Of course, there are people in some isolated geographic areas who may need to eat meat or dairy, but it can nearly always be avoided.
When I contemplated this fact along with my life-long commitment to kindness and care for all beings (and things), I was 'done in'. I was ethically and rationally cornered: How could I possibly sacrifice an animal's life when I knew for certain it was merely a personal choice based on my tastes, customs, habitual patterns, and/or pleasure?
I had to ask myself why I would sacrifice any life, anywhere, at any time, merely for my own pleasure? I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that from now until I die, I can thrive in robust health without eating meat or dairy. There is no question of this; I've done it for many years. I realize I cannot live on earth without sacrificing life, but, ethically, I must do all I can to minimize, rather than justify, that sacrifice.
I am very grateful to Stephen David Ross. For I was prompted to this way of life in consequence of reading his “Plenishment in the Earth: An Ethic of Inclusion.” In Chapter 7, Carnaval, he briefly discusses the Eden story and includes the following lines from Alexander Pope's “Essay on Man” (3, 4:152-164):
Man walk'd with beast, joint tenant of the shade;
The same table, and the same his bed;
Nor murder cloath'd him, and no murder fed.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Heav'n's attribute was Universal Care,
And Man's prerogative to rule, but spare.
Ah! how unlike the man of times to come!
Of half that live the butcher and the tomb;
Who, foe to Nature, hears the gen'ral groan,
Murders their species, and betrays his own.
I would guess we have reached an impasse, as your responses seems scarce on substance to me as well.
Yes, as you say you see what Im getting at. I think we might disagree about what levels of pain and suffering matters though...i wouldnt say you couldn't eat anything that feels any pain or suffering. I would say it depends on how and what capacity the animal has for pain, suffering and/or consciousness compared to humans. (Presumably there are attributes to human suffering that make it wrong that we would want to see present in the animal we shouldn't eat (ethically speaking, and with suffering as our metric).
Quoting Graeme M
Well I wouldnt qualify the capacity for pain and suffering alone. I think it needs to be an experience of suffering/pain of a certain kind, a kind that fits the same criteria for why pain and suffering is wrong to inflict on humans.
Aside from that consideration, yes I think ethics (with preventing suffering as the moral metric) would demand we be more careful about what animals we eat.
Quoting Graeme M
No, my issue is with claiming the moral high ground when you dont actually have it. (And by “you” i mean people in general, not you personally).
Plus, and again not directed at you personally, claiming the moral high ground is far too often the cry of the self righteous.
Anyway, Im glad I was eventually able to articulate my view more clearly. You’ve given me food for thought so Im going to do some thinking on what youve said.
I disagree that it's an impasse, so I cannot "agree to disagree". In my mind, you're simply refusing to voice specific complaints about actual moral high grounds real vegetarians have, and are giving the excuse that I haven't said anything of substance. (Maybe you misunderstand the complaint? Saying that my response is "scarce on substance" is a bit odd to me... presumably, you're griping about vegetarians holding moral high ground. I'm assuming you're saying they don't hold moral high ground by their own rules. The question then is, are you correctly applying those rules? Are you actually refuting them? Nothing I see in your complaints is genuine... it all seems straw-mannish).
But if you prefer forfeiture, fine; that's your prerogative. I cannot force you to defend your claims.
I like this, it's more my own stance on vegan ethics. I find it hard to adopt the view that all animals are accorded the same ethical duty, largely due to the problematic claims that all animals have interests of the kind we believe carry a moral weight and that all animals experience pain and suffering.
Vegan ethics also rejects the commodity status of other animals but I am troubled by that claim as well. Why do we reject the commodity status of cows but not wheat? Presumably, because cows are "conscious" and can have both interests and suffering. But the interests of cows are not the same as our interests. Equally, we can farm cows without causing them harm (though I suspect that is not at all the norm) so on theoretical grounds at least I don't really see the need to accept this claim. In the end, I think that claim also really boils down to pain and suffering, because as I noted earlier if an organism can't suffer why would it matter if I own it?
So I think pain and suffering are strong grounds for arguing for a moral duty to other animals, though it might not always require not using (or eating) another animal.
We don't determine ethical value based on extreme scenarios though. That's like me saying, who would you save, your son or your daughter, and whoever you don't save has no ethical value and under all circumstances, not just these fringe ones, should be slaughtered and eaten.
We could make it 1 to 1 instead of 100 to 100, it's the same thing.
Son or daughter is asking about specific people and I don't have a son or daughter so I couldn't answer. We could ask "would you rather save a man or a woman" or "would you rather save a white person or a black person?" in both cases my answer is indifference.
With this question I'm only talking about the question of whether the two have equal moral value or ought to be valued equally. It doesn't follow from this that the one who doesn't get saved has no ethical value nor am I seeking to validate the morality of meat eating here.
Again, the extreme scenario doesn't help you determine moral value AT ALL under normal circumstances. It tells you nothing about how cows or humans should be treated in non-life-or-death scenarios.
I know, I was only seeking to address the question of moral worth. I stated in my OP that I believe meat eaters need to acknowledge their own speciesism. I believe speciesism is a presupposition to meat eating, but as far as I can tell I don't think it's a bad one.
I do believe we should treat animals well in their day to day life. I do believe humans have ethical duties to animals, but I don't think an animal can have a moral duty.
We are in agreement, I think your stance is consistent.
That's contradictory. If you'd known that your example does not prove moral worth, you wouldn't have employed it to make a case about moral worth.
Not every human shares your interests either. What's your point?
And the "farming" of cows could only be done without harming them if you waited until they dropped dead of natural causes to eat their rotting carcasses.
Throughout this discussion I've been making the point that animals don't have as much moral worth as humans. I don't see how I'm being contradictory.
Pick a position please and then please actually try to make your case. First you use an example to show that they are not of the same worth, then you admit that your example cannot really prove anything about their moral value, and then you go back to saying they're not of the same worth as though you've made a case for that somehow, which you haven't... I mean... what exactly is your point? Or do you even know anymore?
In regard to the harming of farmed animals, I suppose it depends on what you mean by harm. I tend to view harm in welfare terms - if I am harmed it reduces the extent of my happiness and well-being. On that view, a pig kept in an intensive farm where she suffers psychological trauma and/or physical disability is being harmed. However a beef steer on a free range farm may enjoy a life considerably better than his wild counterparts and on the whole may attain considerable happiness and well-being. His harm is minimal for being a farmed animal. Some would suggest that killing the steer is a harm, but I'd disagree if we do so in such a way as he is unaware of his death.
Well, actually only some vegans would make that claim. To be an ethical vegan only requires the recognition that the interests of a cow to live and be unharmed outweigh our interests to eat their carcasses for pleasure.
Quoting Graeme M
I don't see how or why you're suddenly setting the goalpost at interests above natural biological ones? Don't humans have natural biological interests that we take very very seriously for no other reason than that they are our natural biological interests? Surely you wouldn't kill a baby, mentally disabled, perhaps very depressed person, or any other human being because the only interest they feel in continuing to live is a natural biological interest?
But you contradict yourself here anyway:
Quoting Graeme M
Unless of course you actually meant to say "he is unaware of any pain associated with his death." Because otherwise you're admitting that it is harmful to take the life away from a creature who even "only" possesses a natural biological interest in continuing said life.
Quoting Graeme M
It's possible, but not the norm. You can't defend the meat-eating for the majority of people in the masses that humans do on the basis of some pastoral ideal that comprises perhaps about 1% of the entire meat industry. If we eradicated factory farms and the evils that go with it, the vast majority of people would still have to go vegan because there simply would not be enough meat to go around.
Also, people like to suggest that "nature is red in tooth and claw," but if you look at the average day-in-the-life of a wild animal--especially a large, herding herbivore like a cow-- it is (or would be) pretty pleasant.
And even if they did live better lives on farms, it's still not a good enough justification for killing them. Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro is an excellent novel portraying why that would be immoral to do to humans, and I can't see an argument for why it would suddenly be okay to do to any other creature who values his or her life. "I treated you nicely for a while, now I'm allowed to kill you and harvest your body" just isn't a very good moral code.
I dont think youre really contradicting yourself, but a vegan can make a strong point about using a scale of moral worth simply by asking about where different kinds of humans fit on that scale. If some humans have lesser moral worth is it ok to eat them? (Barring any health issues concerning cannibalism of course.)
I don't need to pick a position in regard to meat eating vs. vegetarianism. I didn't create this thread with the idea that people were going to come along and try to defeat my argument. I didn't even make much of an argument in the OP; I just speculated that any ethical justification of meat eating presupposes speciesism (i.e. the idea the humans have an elevated moral worth over that of animals) and this speciesism makes sense to me. That's it. We could accept speciesism and still argue that meat eating is wrong.
I didn't ask you to. My post was all about your waffling on animal and human moral value.
Well, that's more or less my point. I am saying the cow does not have an express interest in living. When I speak about a "biological" disposition, I am speaking about an inherited behaviour to avoid damage. Animals, indeed all organisms (including plants) have evolved defences against damage. There is no actual intent here, it is a blind evolutionary outcome. A cow's desire to live on is not really such, it is the evolutionary imperative of reproducing successfully. Just like a potato plant. Humans on the other hand have the abstract idea that they can die, so our interest in living on is an express one (as well as the underlying biological disposition).
Cow's also have a desire to avoid harm, as do we. Again, it's largely an evolved defence but it IS accompanied by painful feelings so for both us and the cow there is an actual desire or interest. If a cow could speak, it couldn't say that it doesn't want to die, but it could say it doesn't want to be hurt. I would suggest that we can farm cows in such a way as not to cause them harm, day to day (ie, pain and suffering).
In regards to the difference between the interests of a non-imapired human and an impaired or immature human, the reason for that moral duty is nothing to do with the biological interests of the person, but rather some broader species-specific interest. Put another way, in our society we are of the view that babies and impaired persons attract the right to life merely because they are human. In other times and places, that moral duty may not apply (for example, utilitarians may believe there is a strong case for euthanising persons with severe disability).
In this context, we have come to see other humans as deserving of rights that trump any interest we might have in depriving them of life (eg it is murder to kill your severely impaired daughter). But this may merely be a matter of convention, subject to change in the future. It would only remain so if we believe that the course of ethics is to improve our beliefs and behaviours. I'm not sure that an evolutionary/historical account would bear that out.
On the other hand, our interests in using other animals for life sustaining purposes of ours may still trump their interests in avoiding harm (again, I am of the view that if we don't harm them day to day, then there is no interest we have quashed by using them to our ends). The real question is how much harm we agree is acceptable to cause them. Vegans would ask that we harm them not at all.
Quoting Artemis
I'm not quite sure of your argument here. Yes, of course, feeling pain when being killed is a harm. If the steer, you or me can be killed without pain, then we have not been harmed in that sense. However, there is a broader sense in which death is not a harm. Harms accrue to living beings. Once dead, you do not exist and cannot be harmed. So, if in killing you I cause you no pain, you are not harmed. And once dead, no harm can accrue. So there is no harm in killing someone painlessly, at least not to them.
The best we can say is that death thwarts our future potential but I consider that an uncertain claim for the reason that we cannot say what that potential is. It may be that if I don't kill you today, you will die from a heart attack tomorrow. Of course, your death will cause harm (suffering) to those that love you or have some close personal relationship with you, so we do consider that of relevance in the human case. I am not convinced that is such an issue with other animals. It seems to be with elephants, for example, but I'm not sure it is with cattle. It's probably an open question whether a typical herd suffers from the loss of any of their number. I believe The Last Pig does, if the movie of the same name is any guide.
Quoting Artemis
I completely disagree. How could you possibly come to that conclusion?
Quoting Artemis
I think that claim is subject to scrutiny. I suspect that on average, a wild animal's life is quite stressful and filled with suffering. In fact, I suspect that the vast majority of those born do not make it to sexual maturity which must bias the odds in favour of suffering outweighing happiness. It's worth considering the fact that in everyday terms, we cannot do much to alleviate the suffering of wild animals. The farmer on the other hand, can do a great deal to alleviate the suffering of farmed animals. On balance, it should be the case that a farmed animal subjected to ethical methods should experience more happiness and far less suffering than a wild animal.
What waffling did I do? We're on a forum, you can quote me on it. I thought that I've always been clear that my suspicion here - what I'm inclined to - is the view that humans do have a more elevated moral worth than animals. Show me where I'm contradicting myself.
I already did.
In respect to an individual's moral beliefs and choices, yes, that's pretty much true. But at a broader level I think it's much more complex than that. Humans do gain considerably from the use of other animals in a variety of ways, not the least of which being food. It's not simply a case of pleasure. For example, eating at MacDonald's is, I'd suggest, tantamount to killing other animals for fun. However, eating a healthy Meditteranean style diet whilst ensuring as far as practicable to source plants and meats from ethical sources is not. In the former case I think your statement is true, but not in the latter case. Then we have a few more matters to consider before we can make confident ethical statements that might be regarded as globally applicable.
Historical facts about the world explain why the world is how it is but don't tell us what acts are moral or immoral. That decision requires thought, as you note, and agreement. Facts about the world inform that decision making process. Some facts advanced in favour of extending moral prohibitions against animal use are are not true facts, for example claiming that other animals desire not to be exploited or have an express wish not to die. I agree that the capacity for other animals to have bad experiences demands an ethical consideration. It seems a leap though to say that using another animal in circumstances where they do not have a bad experience (or at most have limited bad experiences) should be prohibited, regardless of the benefits to us.
That's a difficult point to prove though. How do we know what animals desire? Aren't we simply anthropomorphising animals by ascribing human-like desires to them?
Quoting HannahPledger
This raises a problematic issue though. Because while the lion kills without thought, it certainly does so with the implied consent of humans. The issue is more pronounced if you look at projects reintroducing predators like wolves into a habitat. Being killed by some wild animal is often accompanied with a lot of stress and pain. Do we therefore have a moral imperative to stop wild animals from killing other animals where possible?
Quoting Graeme M
The sheer amounts of meat produced and consumed seem to preclude any significant consideration for animal welfare. Without factory farms, the prices would skyrocket well beyond what most people can afford.
There is also the rather significant waste of resources associated with meat production.
An interesting perspective on this is to consider if we return to the wild land currently under crops (to feed animals) or used to farm cattle and sheep. Presumably, the presence of wild populations will result in considerable harms to the wild animals now living on those lands. For example, injury, disease, exposure to weather extremes, predation and so on. While much of this probably happens to smaller animals, it could be the case that there is much more general harm and suffering to rewilded lands than were the land to remain under human agriculture. While we could argue that we don't have any moral duty to wild animals that exist naturally, is that still the case if we rewild lands? The resulting suffering stems from our actions.
Quoting Echarmion
Well, maybe. But in the West especially we eat far more meat than we need to. In a world without factory farms, there'd be a lot less meat available and it might be more expensive, but there'd still be considerable demand. Equally, we might reduce the quantity of meat eaten - it might become more of an accepted part of a balanced diet. I agree that we should accept we have a moral duty to eradicate low welfare high intensity animal farming, I am not as confident the same applies to high welfare free range type farming. I also don't think that such a state would lead to most people eating vegan meals - I would foresee something more like the Meditteranean diet. Mostly plants, some meat. Then there's no need to worry about Omega 3, B12, etc supplements.
"Well, that's more or less my point. I am saying the cow does not have an express interest in living. When I speak about a "biological" disposition, I am speaking about an inherited behaviour to avoid damage. Animals, indeed all organisms (including plants) have evolved defences against damage. There is no actual intent here, it is a blind evolutionary outcome. A cow's desire to live on is not really such, it is the evolutionary imperative of reproducing successfully. Just like a potato plant. Humans on the other hand have the abstract idea that they can die, so our interest in living on is an express one (as well as the underlying biological disposition).
Cow's also have a desire to avoid harm, as do we. Again, it's largely an evolved defence but it IS accompanied by painful feelings so for both us and the cow there is an actual desire or interest. If a cow could speak, it couldn't say that it doesn't want to die, but it could say it doesn't want to be hurt. I would suggest that we can farm cows in such a way as not to cause them harm, day to day (ie, pain and suffering)."
So first of all, I’d like to know how you think you know what a cow would or could say if a cow could speak?
What we do know, based on the studies of animal behaviorists, psychologists, neurologists, etc etc. is that animals show the same or at least very similar reactions in the face of danger as humans do. Plants do not. Since plants don’t have brains, the suggestion that animal reactions to danger were similar to plant reactions is just kinda ludicrous on the face of it. But that aside, we have a preponderance of evidence that animals do feel as we do in the face of danger, and a total lack of evidence that they are missing something.
"In regards to the difference between the interests of a non-imapired human and an impaired or immature human, the reason for that moral duty is nothing to do with the biological interests of the person, but rather some broader species-specific interest. Put another way, in our society we are of the view that babies and impaired persons attract the right to life merely because they are human. In other times and places, that moral duty may not apply (for example, utilitarians may believe there is a strong case for euthanising persons with severe disability)."
Utilitarians only believe there is a strong case for euthanizing disabled persons who are acutely suffering, actually. And they do not advocate for it on the basis of species-bonds, but on the individual’s experiences and out of concern that the life of such a person is less pleasurable than painful.
In this context, we have come to see other humans as deserving of rights that trump any interest we might have in depriving them of life (eg it is murder to kill your severely impaired daughter). But this may merely be a matter of convention, subject to change in the future. It would only remain so if we believe that the course of ethics is to improve our beliefs and behaviours. I'm not sure that an evolutionary/historical account would bear that out.
"On the other hand, our interests in using other animals for life sustaining purposes of ours may still trump their interests in avoiding harm (again, I am of the view that if we don't harm them day to day, then there is no interest we have quashed by using them to our ends). The real question is how much harm we agree is acceptable to cause them. Vegans would ask that we harm them not at all."
We’re not killing animals to sustain our own lives. We’re doing so to enhance the pleasure of our own lives. Big difference.
"I'm not quite sure of your argument here. Yes, of course, feeling pain when being killed is a harm. If the steer, you or me can be killed without pain, then we have not been harmed in that sense. However, there is a broader sense in which death is not a harm. Harms accrue to living beings. Once dead, you do not exist and cannot be harmed. So, if in killing you I cause you no pain, you are not harmed. And once dead, no harm can accrue. So there is no harm in killing someone painlessly, at least not to them."
Is that going to be your plea to the judge when convicted of murdering and eating your neighbor?
"The best we can say is that death thwarts our future potential but I consider that an uncertain claim for the reason that we cannot say what that potential is. It may be that if I don't kill you today, you will die from a heart attack tomorrow. Of course, your death will cause harm (suffering) to those that love you or have some close personal relationship with you, so we do consider that of relevance in the human case. I am not convinced that is such an issue with other animals. It seems to be with elephants, for example, but I'm not sure it is with cattle. It's probably an open question whether a typical herd suffers from the loss of any of their number. I believe The Last Pig does, if the movie of the same name is any guide."
“How Animals Grieve” by Barbara King is an excellent resource on the matter. There are numerous other books and accounts that describe the grief herd animals go through when one of their own, especially their offspring, are taken or killed.
"If we eradicated factory farms and the evils that go with it, the vast majority of people would still have to go vegan because there simply would not be enough meat to go around.— Artemis
I completely disagree. How could you possibly come to that conclusion?"
You can disagree as completely or incompletely as you like, but that doesn’t change the fact that our current meat-consumption habits are dependent on the mass-production only a factory farm can afford. 99% of our meat comes from the factories. We don’t have the farm land or labor force necessary to sustain both the pastoral ideal and our overconsumption.
"Also, people like to suggest that "nature is red in tooth and claw," but if you look at the average day-in-the-life of a wild animal--especially a large, herding herbivore like a cow-- it is (or would be) pretty pleasant.— Artemis
I think that claim is subject to scrutiny. I suspect that on average, a wild animal's life is quite stressful and filled with suffering. In fact, I suspect that the vast majority of those born do not make it to sexual maturity which must bias the odds in favour of suffering outweighing happiness. It's worth considering the fact that in everyday terms, we cannot do much to alleviate the suffering of wild animals. The farmer on the other hand, can do a great deal to alleviate the suffering of farmed animals. On balance, it should be the case that a farmed animal subjected to ethical methods should experience more happiness and far less suffering than a wild animal."
You suspect it is stressful, but again, you’re just throwing claims out there in the hopes that they might be true or true enough to make your case.
Grazing herd animals when found in the wild are not constantly being picked off and eaten. They do not reproduce quickly enough for that to be the case. Animals like mosquitoes get picked off by the hundreds before they lay eggs—which is why they lay hundreds of eggs. But even if it were true that animals get eaten in the wild too… I mean that just suggests their life in the wild might be as bad as being in captivity and doomed to the slaughterhouse. That certainly doesn’t justify the act of killing on the part of any moral agent.
But again, even if you were right about all that, you still come back to a moral theory which suggests “I did you a good, now I’m allowed to do you a bad” which is just obviously and completely bankrupt—especially a system in which you are allowed to force the good and then therefore the bad on unwilling or at least non-consenting participants.
I think you misunderstood what I said. I suggested that all organisms, including plants, have damage avoidance behaviours. Sessile organisms like plants evolve rather different tactics to motile organisms like animals, but the underlying selector if you like is the risk of damage. So cows and humans avoid being harmed because they do not want to be damaged. That is different from not wanting to die.
Quoting Artemis
I agree there isn't a good defence for using animals for pleasure. That includes say horse racing, fox hunting, cosmetic testing, fast food, perhaps even fine dining. But we do use animals for positive human benefits such as clothing, pharmaceuticals, food and so on. Some argue in favour of animal testing for medicine but I'm not convinced of that! So consider my arguments framed in the context of those animal uses that are able to be defended on valid grounds (ie there is some actual genuine value for us).
Quoting Artemis
I do have several books on this topic yet to read, but from the research I have read, I am willing to bet they aren't grieving for a loss understood in the abstract as humans do. The loss of an offspring might cause a grief response in all animals including humans, for good reason. Similarly herd animals may grieve the loss of members. But I suggest that is a response to loss alone (and primarily reflects a personal state - the loss means that the animal will no longer gain something from the presence of the other) and doesn't represent an understanding that they might suffer a similar fate.
I covered this in my response earlier. A cow might grieve the loss of a calf or a fellow cow. But it doesn't follow that she knows that she can die. So when we kill a cow quickly and painlessly, I am suggesting it is not a harm to that individual. It may cause grief to others but I don't know how much that affects a typical domestic bovine. Many dairy farmers claim that dairy cows show only limited reaction to loss of a calf. I'm not able to say anything about that.
Quoting Artemis
Agreed, and I thought I made that clear above. I am not defending intensive animal farming sytems or over-consumption.
In regard to wild animal suffering, from my reading and thinking on this I think it more likely that suffering predominates in nature. Brian Tomasik has several essays that tackle this issue and that is broadly his conclusion.
https://longtermrisk.org/the-importance-of-wild-animal-suffering/
Quoting Artemis
If we agree to that standard then it holds true. It's that simple. There is no ultimate moral code, we answer to no-one but ourselves and natural circumstance. If we must use other animals for a good reason - and there seem to be such reasons - then it is up to us to decide whether we should to do that ethically.
I think we should.
You'll have to be more specific, because other than animal use for food (which is only of pleasure value and not genuine value), I'm not sure what your example of the pasture-raised and painlessly-killed steer is supposed to defend.
Quoting Graeme M
So... now you're saying humans don't care about dying either? And if you think humans do... why in the world would you think animals do not possess the same fear? Just because you haven't heard them say it in so many words? That seems rather self-serving considering evolutionary theory alone tells us that any capability we find in one animal exists to varying degrees in others as well. Unless you are religious and believe some supernatural creature endowed us with abilities other animals don't have? At which point this conversation is moot, as we wouldn't have enough common ground to continue.
Quoting Graeme M
Your entire argument seems to boil down to "but we don't KNOW that the cow thinks x, y, or z" without any reason to suggest that she wouldn't. Again, we have all the evidence in the world which leads to the strong inference that she does, and no evidence to support the inference that she wouldn't. Perhaps you are adverse to inferential logic, but in the realm of ethics and real-world problems, that's usually all we got.
Quoting Graeme M
I think his essays look pretty well-crafted for an amateur (he seems to know how to put together a bibliography), but I don't know that he's any kind of authority on the matter either by academic virtue or via field work. Most of his essays just seem to posit hypotheticals. He himself admits right upfront that his view is controversial... although there he fails to suggest to the reader where these alternative views might be found... not very promising. I mean who disagrees with him besides Singer? Does he take up the alternative views of neurologists, animal behaviorists, etc? Not as far as I can tell.
Quoting Graeme M
This is just so convoluted, I'm not sure how to begin unwrapping it.
What are "good reasons" and what does it mean to do something "ethically" if we answer to "no one but ourselves" and there is "no ultimate moral code"? You are, in the space of a single paragraph, jumping from radical moral relativism to the ideal of an objective morality--or at least are being so sloppy with your language that you seem to be doing this.
Another point of sloppiness--how do you propose I try to "answer to [...] natural circumstance"?
I could get into the nitty-gritty of your having thus far not provided any good reasons for killing animals, especially not for food (and might I remind you, this thread is about vegetarianism and meat-eating)... BUT I think it's better to first let you clarify what your metaethical position is before we dive any further into applied ethics.
I have already pointed to the many uses of farmed animals - for food, clothing, pharmaceuticals, etc. I am sure you can find many more. That said, I agree that in the context of the OP we are largely only talking about as food. Food seems to be something of a benefit to us, I'd suggest.
Quoting Artemis
I think you are deliberately seeking to misunderstand. I did not say humans don't care about dying, I said they do because they can entertain the abstract notion of personal existence over time. I think I am safe to claim that cows do not. So, humans are afraid of death, cows are not. But both humans and cows have evolutionarily derived fears of harm, because those fears have been selected for (for obvious reasons). There is a significant distinction between fear of harm and fear of death.
Here is how that could ensue in practice as a result of this fact about things. Take a herd of cows. Place a large screen nearby. Take one cow at a time behind the screen and shoot her to death with a single gunshot. The noise will startle the herd but they will settle. Now, remove the dead cow such that no lingering trace of her death is able to be detected. I suggest you can lead every one of those cows behind the screen and kill her and each will be quite happy to go.
Try the same with a group of humans free to talk to each other. Will each be happy to go?
The former case happens all the time. The latter never.
Quoting Artemis
No, I think we have mountains of empirical evidence that cows do NOT know they can die.
Re Tomasik (example) and wild animal suffering, here we will just have to disagree. There are those who claim that the life of the wild animal is mostly stress free, and for some kinds of animals that may be true (it may have been for free roaming kangaroos 1000 years ago, for example), but it probably is not the case for many other species (eg birds, mice, zebra, etc). On balance, I think pain, suffering and stress predominate in nature. You could choose to read the many references Tomasik includes in his article, many of which are empirical studies.
Quoting Artemis
It worries me that such a simple and clear statement confuses you. That probably explains much of your commentary.
It seemed at first like you were a smart and interesting new interlocutor. Now you're becoming unpleasant, and I don't have the time or patience for that. Best wishes for your future endeavors though.
Its true, it does seem like youre deliberately misunderstanding him. It does come across as strange that the sentence you referenced with quotes needed to be explained. Just because you feel what he expressed is unpleasant doesnt mean its not true.
Its not like he said anything more out of line than you have, careful of the glass house.
I was enjoying the exchange, i think he posed an interesting challenge to the vegan pov. So far you havent answered it, I think you need to read his points more charitably, and you will see he’s making a fair, logical point.
There must be some term for what your saying here. Its a vegan ethic applied to a more narrow spectrum of animal based on mental capacity. It seems no more or less arbitrary than normal veganism.
Are you the first Neo-Vegan?
Do you really think that a stance that evaluates an ethical duty on the basis of relevant mental states is arbitrary? I wouldn't have thought so, it seems a sound basis for a starting point. To me, vegans eating pumpkins but not oysters seems pretty arbitrary!
Well I said it was no more or less arbitrary. I just meant to put them on the same footing.
As sweet as it is for you to sweep to your friend's defense here, both of you have only suggested how obvious and clear G's statement was without actually elaborating on what it was he was saying. I pointed out what was incongruous in his paragraph... an issue neither of you have of yet even attempted to address.
I'd be extremely curious to see that if in a sort of blind test you both could produce the same interpretation of his words considering the contradiction in his fundamental ethical position he displayed.
Not a friend, Ive only interacted with him on this thread as far as I know and I wouldn't be defending anyone based on friendship anyway. This is an example of whats been mentioned to you...applying a little charity goes a long way. You assume that I didnt have a good reason to chime in...try assuming that I do.
Further, and Im not trying to be rude here, you didnt really point anything out about incongruity. You think you did, but you missed the point of what was being said and ended up (unintentionally it seems) straw manning him. He hasnt addressed what you said because its incorrect. There is no contradiction. You should focus on what people are trying to communicate rather than cherry picking phrases or words to leverage a dismissal of what they are saying.
I mean, just look at how you ended your last post...suggesting that a blind test would expose low motives or some other invalid thinking. (Not sure if youre trying to imply bias or dishonesty or what).
You have no real basis for thinking that, and its the sort of thing that makes it difficult to have a real discussion. Are you interested in discussion or playing “gotchya!”?
Still waiting for you to enlighten me as to his true meaning....?
You say waiting, I say ignoring valid criticisms. You will need to address those first because as it stands your attitude and mistakes mentioned above are preventing you from being “enlightened”. If you do not address the criticisms, I have no reason to believe you wouldn't just commit them again and thereby waste my time in explaining anything. Also, its already been laid out, if there is something specific you need clarification on then tell me what it is and Ill try and explain it.
Im just trying to get you to be more charitable and open minded because I was enjoying watching the exchange and would like to see it continue (if you remember, you ejected from the discussion not too many posts ago)
Soooo, you got nothing and continue to evade--frankly, I'm not surprised. Let me know when/if you ever figure it out.
You are evading madame, not me. You arent even paying attention to what Im writing, i specifically addressed this sort of response by expressing exactly why that particular query of yours isnt being answered.
One, its already been laid out. You failed to understand the point made and offered an invalid criticism (contradiction where there is none.)
Two, you have ignored being called out on your mistake. Even if I am wrong with those criticisms you should still address them by showing how they are wrong instead of just ignoring them. Ignoring them is what makes you in fact the one who is evading. If its a rise above it/high ground thing, please understand Im not trying to insult you or trying to hurt you. Im just noticing errors that are preventing the discussion from moving forward.
Nope, you still fail to address my concerns. Both of you have. It's a pretty simple request that someone be clear about their metaethics before continuing a conversation about applied ethics... His refusal to answer and his ungallant retort to this request were the end of the actual discussion. Everything else since has just been passing time amusingly.
Since you, however, seem to have nothing yourself to add to the discussion, I will leave the two of you to your unfolding love story.
Interesting. Never heard of metaethics before. :)
Will have to look into that.
Well he can answer what he likes, Im specifically addressing you and you are specifically ignoring it while using your incorrect initial assessment of what someone else said to aid in your continued evasion.
Quoting Artemis
Just because its not swearing or direct insult doesnt make it any less childish or uncivil. Im being earnest with you here.
I think you’ve misunderstood what that guy meant, and you wont even acknowledge the possibility enough to deny it. You just keep making the same demand and ignoring everything else like its a matter of principal. Is it? Do you have some rule about engaging with online criticism because the internet is such a cesspool? Is that it?
Hey what's up. Kind of curious about what the root argument(s) is/are at this point as far as the recent posts.
I've checked the quotes but still kinda foggy.
Animals fear to die/feel emotion, no they don't, what does it matter they're animals, etc?
Two opposing opinions. Not a big deal?
They are only opposed opinions if one fails to recognise the distinction between where various animals (including humans) sit on the spectrum of certain mental capacities. My understanding is that Graeme is positing that the threshold on that spectrum can exclude many animals that the standard vegan does not based on certain mental traits/capacities.
Its not contradictory because he is not including all animals when he says opposing things, he is referencing two different categories. (Created by the distinction made based in mental capacities/traits.)
In order to show he is being contradictory, you would first have to show that the distinction he makes is not valid. No one has, and I don’t see how it can be done. Id like to though, just as soon as everyones on the same page about what he’s actually saying.
Got it. Hey I just ate a few baby chicken embryos a few hours ago. Shoot I don't think there's an animal I haven't ate. Except for the cool ones of course. Bear, wolf, lion, cats and dogs, etc.
For the sake of debate however. We'd consider hamsters to be 'low' on said spectrum right? Did you know they can learn their name and even respond to it? I'll never forget.. (actually this is the first time I recall it) I was I don't know how old, couldn't have been much more than 10. Was able to buy two hamsters. Plus the cage, bedding, feed, all that. I forget if they were both male or both female or one of each but, apparently they weren't supposed to be caged together. Long story short one day I woke up and couldn't see the other one. Found him in the corner of the thing with a wound on his underside alive but just laying there. Honestly to this day I couldn't tell you who was more traumatized.
Pointless story I guess but a diehard biologist wouldn't discount the possibility of alien life. If this is so. You tell me. Do you think we'd be viewed much higher than a hamster on this 'spectrum' of yours?
Its not my spectrum, but I find it difficult to imagine the specific traits mentioned would “phase out” at some point along the spectrum Considering how specific they are to human beings. Aliens advanced enough might have a different set of traits they use to create a spectrum then we could very easily not be in it but I think the threshold that qualifies humans would be maintained on the offered spectrum.
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/metaethics/
The SEP is as always a good resource for such things.
In the framework of this discussion, it's about aligning oneself either with the notion of morality being objective or subjective. If it is in any sense the former, there is a conversation to be had. If the latter, well, nothing more to be said ethically as all discussion would be as useful as arguing about ice cream flavors.
Quoting Artemis
Artemis, I am no philosopher so you may have to make do with "sloppy language". I suggest my statement is clear enough. I do not think there is an "objective" morality in the sense that morality is a singular natural property of the universe in the absence of minds to think about such things. Morality is, even that which exists within other species, context specific. In the case of we humans, I think it is also subject to general agreement. So yes, my position is essentially subjectivist. If we wish to strike a moral stance in relation to other animals, it cannot be - I contend - merely on the basis that they are animals. There has to be something more useful than this.
Many vegans/activists come from the angle that the interests of other animals should be accorded the same consideration as those of humans. That's fine, but I maintain that there are considerable differences between the interests of other animals and those of humans. Some simply do not exist. Similarly, many also believe - for example, abolitionists - that pain and suffering are the key considerations. If a being cannot experience pain and suffering then we don't have to worry about moral duties in terms of the good and the bad to the individual. We must also consider the value to humans in the use of other animals.
Some humans use and exploit and even kill other humans for their own benefit. While we do have some broadly agreed moral beliefs about this it is by no means a universal position and subject to change due to natural circumstance. If there are benefits to humans from the use of other animals - and there are - then we need to look to the possible range of animal properties we'd need to consider in determining just what ethical duty we owe them.
Put more simply, any time we act ethically, we are acting according to the ethical standards that we as a group have agreed. We answer to no-one but ourselves.
First I'll say what I broadly agree with that you seem to be saying or implying. I agree that there is no objective source of ethics outside of human thought and logic. I also agree that there are many different interests between species and that humans especially have created idiosyncratic interests. Finally, I agree that it has historically benefited human progress to exploit animals, and that there may be an increasingly small number of reasons why we may have to continue doing so, at least for a little while longer. I think those reasons pretty much just boil down to medicinal ones at this point. We are not dependent on animals for any other materials anymore, like food or clothing.
However, I would first of all caution you against a democratically chosen ethics (which is my best understanding of what you seem to be suggesting) as it has many logical and practical problems. They are too numerous to list all, but for starters, the interests of the majority do not always match interests of minorities. That's how you get slavery and caste systems and a thousand other kinds of exploitation and abuse. Without something like John Rawls' Veil,of Ignorance, you can't rely on the majority to make decisions in the best interests of the minority.
Also, who gets a vote in this system? Does the African slave? Does the child? Does the cow? And although the latter two may not be able to vote practically speaking, shouldn't we have a system in place which considers their interests and those of any human or non-human that has interests but is unable to vote?
What if the majority is lead astray by another Hitler? What do you do when people are making ethics based on wrong information? Was it ethical to hit wives before we had the science to prove that women are just as smart as men? Was it ethical to keep black slaves before we had the knowledge that they are just as human as whites?
Etc etc.
But another thought occured to me today re: wild animal suffering. It seems to me irrelevant whether wild animals do suffer more or less, because it's not like we're raising cattle that would otherwise be in the wild. We're not saving any animals from a life in the wild. We're not taking in wild animals as an act of grace, and we couldn't just release them into the wild if we all went vegan.
I suspect the biggest obstacle to any kind of genuine representation for animals in the development of rights-based frameworks is simply species. It is much easier for humans to gain greater participation when the empirical evidence supports them (they are, after all, human) AND they can have their own say. Personally, I don't really object to this. I realise people can claim speciesism or appeals to nature in my stance, but the fact that the world we have depends upon inter-species competition and exploitation (as well as co-operation) is not to be ignored. There is no real reason I can see for us to have to disregard species as a factor in working out how to treat other animals. Relations between humans and other animals is not the same as relations between humans.
As I noted, pretending that other animals perceive the world very much as we do or share similar interests or have cognitive capacities that approach ours isn't really helpful when the science tends to point in the opposite direction. That isn't to disparage other animals - they are very capable in their own ways, many do have quite rich cognitive and perceptual lives and we should do a lot better than we do in respecting them. I just am not convinced that respect has to amount to some kind of belief that we should never harm them or use them. I think we need a pragmatic definition for what "as far as is possible and practicable" means.
Don't get me wrong though. The reason I endorse vegan ethics is because the philosophy places a genuine weight on the intrinsic value of other animals. That is, we actually care about them for themeselves. Other philosophies such as say reducetarianism are more self-focused. Plus of course veganism is broader and tackles issues such as animal testing, use of animals for sport and pleasure, indeed the whole gamut of human relations with other animals.
By the way, I agree with you regarding the case for comparing wild animal suffering with that of farmed animals. I often have this conversation with farmers and they seem not to get it. We can't justify the harming of an animal we own on the basis that it's less of a harm than a wild animal suffers (indeed, the harms a farmed animal experiences are on the shoulders of the farmer). The two are not causally related in any way. Where I think wild animal suffering raises its head is in making a fair assessment of the harms we do and the extent to which we should cause them. I gave two examples earlier.
One is crop related harms, which to my mind extends beyond just harvesting deaths. I have had a pretty fair go at tackling this and have read about all the genuine literature that seems to be out there and in the end, I think it probably is the case that not eating any animals comes out ahead (but only when we factor in farmed and wild-caught aquatic animals as well), but it's by no means a secure case. I think someone eating only range grazed beef and lamb could be doing less harm overall than an urban vegan, especially when we consider related factors such as ecological and environmental impacts. I kind of think that in the world have, it is overall better, for now at least, to have some animal farming. But I'd much rather it was informed by vegan ethics. I do have much more I could say on that.
The other concern is that of wild animal suffering in the case that we abandon animal farming and return the land to nature. This would lead to much wild animal suffering and it's not clear to me that this is a gain. Grazing sheep and cattle in ethical and environmentally responsible ways can do much to manage the land by increasing local biodiversity, improving water cycles and so on. But more to the point, the responsible farmer can do much to alleviate animal suffering on his holdings. In particular, he can attend the needs and health of his herd far more so than most of us can do in regard to wild animals. Much farming land has been much changed by that use - in Australia, traditional animal ag methods have led to considerable degradation. To abandon that land to nature may not be a gain, while responsible farmers can do much to improve the land and ensure its sustainability into the future. Two very good books that cover that in the Australian context are Call of the Reed Warbler and The Wooleen Way. I have talked with both authors and they have a lot to say. Such people *should* be in the debate yet are so often excluded by the evangelical vegans/advocates.
In the end, while I would like to see the world move to the least possible use and harm of other animals that we can attain, I don't know that the goal has to be abolitionism or even animal rights in the manner so many appear to endorse. Perhaps veganism could have greater influence if it were encouraged and expounded in a more genuinely meaningful way than by blind adherence to an often ill-considered ideology.
For one, I don't think it makes sense to compare the impact of the diets of a rural meat-eater with an urban vegan. So what if the rural meat-eater has a lesser environmental impact than an urban vegan? S/he'd have an even lesser impact as a rural vegan.
As far as harvesting deaths go, let's do the math:
There's about 100lbs of meat on the average deer (I'm using deer because as a wild animal we wouldn't even have to clear land for it to graze on). And about 715 calories per lb. That's 71,500 calories per deer.
Soy yields on average 6 million calories per acre. There are 2.47 acres to a hectare. That's 14,820,000 calories per hectare.
They estimate that about 15 animals are killed per hectare of crops. 14,820,000 divided by 15 is: 988,000 calories per dead animal. 988,000 divided by 71,500 is 13.8.
Almost 14 times more animals are killed on a calorie for calorie basis when hunting deer than harvesting soy--which is not even one of the most calorie-dense crops.
Quoting Graeme M
You see, when I see phrases like "evangelical vegan" or "blind adherence"... well that's another turn off to the conversation, because it just tells me you're already dismissing anything the other side has to say before I say it. It tells me you are not participating in this conversation in good faith.
Let me clarify this. I wasn't comparing rural with urban. My point is that an urban, supermarket shopping omni can choose to eat only certain kinds of meat. The urban supermarket-shopping vegan will tend to buy plant foods that are sourced from large-scale industrialised cropping activities where harms are greatest (OK, this is an assumption, but when we think about ethical foods, we tend to think only of animals raised in high welfare conditions - it is rare in my experience to find ethically grown plant products). I agree that there are so many nuances to this question, my point is simply that it isn't always the case that crop related activities are without harm or are least harm.
In regard to my use of emotive terms, my observation about the motivation of vegan evangelicism is grounded in the obvious behaviours of advocates in the public domain. In regard to the underlying value of the philosophy I don't need to be convinced, but if you don't notice that many vegan advocates tend to behave in a overly zealous manner (which frequently has the opposite effect to that desired) then I think you may not be taking an objective view of things. Their language is often emotionally charged and the claims frequently inaccurate or downright false. This opens the entire philosophy to trenchant criticism and its hard to defend a claim when the criticism so often hits the mark.
At the end of the day, this is all just my opinion. I am not a thought leader nor a social influencer, heck, even my broader family is not persuaded by my views. Nonetheless, I have an avowed interest in encouraging people to adopt vegan ethics to whatever extent they feel comfortable with. Having spent several years invested in this, I have come to the disappointing conclusion that all too often the vegan "movement" is its own worst enemy.
In regard to the original post that started this whole discussion, I don't think it is "speciesist" to use other animals. I do think human beings - as a general rule for treating the other humans in our lives - are more important than other animals. And I agree that we owe an ethical duty to the animals we do use.
Now, regarding numbers, here are couple of pieces I wrote about that problem. One is a sort of review of a book published here in Australia a year or two back, the other is a response to a farming advocate who claimed she has shown beyond doubt that vegans kill more animals. I'd be interested in your thoughts (note: my blog is not widely read and really is more of a place for me to store my ideas for future reference). I have no sound conclusion regarding crop related harms, but I hope there are a couple of interesting angles uncovered in my articles.
https://gm136.wordpress.com/2019/07/18/on-eating-meat-and-the-numbers-game/
https://gm136.wordpress.com/2019/12/05/do-vegans-really-kill-more-animals/
Of course. So, what do you think of the ethics of it?
Why? Lions don't care about the welfare of antelopes. Plenty of animals kill slowly with debilitating poison, or even divesting their prey alive.
If what's natural is what's right, you're being inconsistent.
The word “speciesism” is modeled after “racism” and “sexism” and refers to the belief that one’s own kind is inherently better and more valuable than other kinds. It is a prejudice that favors one’s own just because it is one’s own, presumably without rationally considering their real merits. (A person is not a racist if he thinks his own race is inferior.)
If upon reflection, you still think that humans are more valuable than animals, you are not necessarily speciesist since you are now supposedly armed with rational arguments and the fact that you happen to be human yourself, is not a part of your consideration. A rational approach would however require that we don’t completely disregard the needs of those other species. They can’t be completely without value just because they are not human, and so this anti-speciesist approach may serve as an argument for treating animals with consideration.
That being said, the analogy between speciesism and racism doesn’t quite work since someone who claims to have rational arguments for why one race (for example one’s own) is superior to the others, would be considered a racist in a very strong sense. So you are right, an accusation of speciesism does seem rather funny.