# Assumption by some vegetarians that "meat is murder" - How do you argue with this? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [March 2, 2009, 10:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/assumption-by-some-vegetarians-that-meat-is-murder-how-do-you-argue-with-this/487987 "2009-03-02T10:14:11Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Richard\_Parker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/35a633/32.png) [@Richard\_Parker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Parker)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2009, 7:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/assumption-by-some-vegetarians-that-meat-is-murder-how-do-you-argue-with-this/487987/61 "2009-03-02T19:43:37Z")
> [@Koxinga](#): > > Change that to “one or two posters who engage in appeal to authority fallacy”, then I’d tend to agree. With the added fallacy that because a name can be attached to a position, the position therefore has merit (or even “cannot be defeated by logic”). :Shrug: I imagine you can find a “theorist” for almost anything these days. You’re right that just naming a philosopher who believes something does not demonstrate that a position cannot be defeated by logic alone. But if you look at the threads, someone usually runs through Singer’s argument instead of just mentioning him by name. You’re probably familiar with it. It involves examining possible distinctions between humans with diminished capacity and intelligent animals. Additionally, I think many of the reactionaries who think all believers in animal rights are mentally ill would be surprised to learn that animal rights theory is the subject of serious academic discussion. That it is the subject of discussion by well-respected philosophers can be demonstrated by merely citing those philosophers works. Peter Singer is a professor at Princeton. That is at least circumstantial evidence that he is not mentally ill. ---
**Author:** ![Sophistry\_and\_Illusion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b3f665/32.png) [@Sophistry\_and\_Illusion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sophistry_and_Illusion)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2009, 7:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/assumption-by-some-vegetarians-that-meat-is-murder-how-do-you-argue-with-this/487987/62 "2009-03-02T19:51:59Z")
> [@Richard\_Parker](#): > > Peter Singer is a professor at Princeton. That is at least circumstantial evidence that he is not mentally ill. You never know. Saul Kripe taught at Princeton for years and by all accounts was something of a borderline case. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![YogSothoth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/8edcca/32.png) [@YogSothoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/YogSothoth)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2009, 8:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/assumption-by-some-vegetarians-that-meat-is-murder-how-do-you-argue-with-this/487987/63 "2009-03-02T20:26:10Z")
[quote=“Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit, post:22, topic:487987”] That seems intuitive, but is it actually true? In my view, moral is a social construct (I’ve called it a ‘social selector’ in the past, i.e. something that decides a society’s fitness to ‘stand the test of time’, so to speak), and thus, to extend it beyond anything that can be reasonably considered a society seems problematic. Similarly, if there is an evolutionary reason for morality (and I think there is, at least in so far as there is an evolutionary reason for a tendency to create societies), I can’t easily see how to apply it to species you can’t interbreed with; they’re part of the environment, as far as evolution is concerned. One could think about broadening the confines of the term ‘society’ to such an extend that it includes, for instance, pets or even farm animals; but still, that doesn’t, at least as far as I can see, imply that the same moral rules apply to them. There is no a priori necessity that all members of a society ought to be treated equally; it’s a tenet of our current society’s morality, but that can’t necessarily be extended to a society with non-human members. [QUOTE] I am of similiar mind on this issue. The way I see it, “morals” have no definition beyond what humans have given it. To answer the whole vegetarianism and “meat is murder” question is to imbue animals with human characteristics and imagine sentient pondering where there are none. We can kill, but not murder, animals. > [@Sophistry\_and\_Illusion](#): > > Well, I’m not sure how I wound up as the sole defender of animal rights here, but I’ll do my best devil’s advocacy. Consider it this way: if you took an animal, like a dog, and you subjected it to brutal torture for several days before it eventually died of its injuries, I think it’s clear you did something cruel. Something immoral. And your action was cruel and immoral not because of anything you did to another human, but because of the excruciating and needless pain you caused to the dog. So IMO it’s pretty clear that animals are deserving of some moral consideration. The only question remaining is, how much moral consideration? Of course you could head this argument off at the pass by claiming that torturing the dog to death wasn’t wrong. But that’s not a route I would like to take. Morality may be conventional to some extent, but “conventional” =! “whatever we make it”. I think to attribute human morality to the dog, we would have to find some way to connect that to humanity’s well being. Someone who would torture an animal would probably be someone who wouldnt think twice about doing it to humans, so with that connection made, I would be loathed to give him a free pass. However, that is about as much humanity as I’m willing to grant the dog. Someone who eats an animal is highly unlikely to do the same to humans, and in fact will probably contribute to humanity in some way. So in that sense, I’m unwilling to find meat eaters cruel or immoral ---
**Author:** ![HoboStew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/f17d59/32.png) [@HoboStew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HoboStew)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2009, 8:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/assumption-by-some-vegetarians-that-meat-is-murder-how-do-you-argue-with-this/487987/64 "2009-03-02T20:31:23Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > Do you have a cite handy that plants feel discomfort (when raised in inhumane conditions) or pain? You have one handy that animals do? ---
**Author:** ![SteveG1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bb73d2/32.png) [@SteveG1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SteveG1)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2009, 8:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/assumption-by-some-vegetarians-that-meat-is-murder-how-do-you-argue-with-this/487987/65 "2009-03-02T20:42:51Z")
> [@Phlosphr](#): > > Morally speaking, ending an animal’s life to support your own [supermarkets aside] is survival. Veggies [such as my wife] say, “yes, but we have the choice to go to the supermarket, a lioness does not.” > > The strength of that assertion is tenuous at best. > ETA: sometimes I look at my lonely grill and wonder if he would like more flesh upon it rather than tofuu burgers and veggies. I’ve yet to get an answer, so you can see who wins more arguments at the Phlosphr household. Those veggies are, or were, alive too. So taking the argument all the way, eating almost anything is murder 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2009, 8:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/assumption-by-some-vegetarians-that-meat-is-murder-how-do-you-argue-with-this/487987/66 "2009-03-02T20:48:45Z")
> [@HoboStew](#): > > You have one handy that animals do? Is this a serious question? Do you want me to prove that animals have a central nervous system? ---
**Author:** ![HoboStew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/f17d59/32.png) [@HoboStew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HoboStew)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2009, 8:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/assumption-by-some-vegetarians-that-meat-is-murder-how-do-you-argue-with-this/487987/67 "2009-03-02T20:57:29Z")
Pain is a personal, inscrutable experience. There is no way to objectively know whether or not another form of life experiences it. Besides, I would wager most animals killed for food don’t experience pain - if they are killed properly. If I eat a sustainably farmed animal that was killed quickly and painlessly, is THAT murder? ---
**Author:** ![smiling\_bandit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9a140/32.png) [@smiling\_bandit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smiling_bandit)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2009, 9:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/assumption-by-some-vegetarians-that-meat-is-murder-how-do-you-argue-with-this/487987/68 "2009-03-02T21:04:11Z")
And would have felt far more pain from a death in the wild, I expect. I’ve seen the results of that myself. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2009, 9:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/assumption-by-some-vegetarians-that-meat-is-murder-how-do-you-argue-with-this/487987/69 "2009-03-02T21:05:50Z")
> [@HoboStew](#): > > Pain is a personal, inscrutable experience. There is no way to objectively know whether or not another form of life experiences it. Doesn’t this make your initial comment irrelevant? Basic observation of the world would show that at least some animals feel pain. I’ve never seen any reason to hold the same belief about a plant. > [@](#): > > If I eat a sustainably farmed animal that was killed quickly and painlessly, is THAT murder? I’ve never argued that killing animals is murder in the first place. I don’t think it is and I find the comparison stupid. ---
**Author:** ![HoboStew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/f17d59/32.png) [@HoboStew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HoboStew)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2009, 9:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/assumption-by-some-vegetarians-that-meat-is-murder-how-do-you-argue-with-this/487987/70 "2009-03-02T21:10:07Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > Doesn’t this make your initial comment irrelevant? Basic observation of the world would show that at least some animals feel pain. I’ve never seen any reason to hold the same belief about a plant. My initial comment was that (almost) anytime you eat something, something must die. You were the one who introduced pain and discomfort into this, and all I was doing was pointing out that those are pretty useless as objective metrics. I fail to see how any of our subsequent discussion renders my initial comment irrelevant. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2009, 9:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/assumption-by-some-vegetarians-that-meat-is-murder-how-do-you-argue-with-this/487987/71 "2009-03-02T21:12:29Z")
> [@HoboStew](#): > > My initial comment was that (almost) anytime you eat something, something must die. Which is true. > [@](#): > > You were the one who introduced pain and discomfort into this, and all I was doing was pointing out that those are pretty useless as objective metrics. You asked why killing a plant is better than killing an animal and I gave an answer: lacking nervous systems, plants don’t feel pain. If a dog’s tail is stepped on or its leg broken, you might argue it’s not possible to objectively prove the animal is feeling pain, but it’s nonetheless pretty obvious that it is. ---
**Author:** ![Bruce\_Wayne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/22d042/32.png) [@Bruce\_Wayne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bruce_Wayne)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2009, 9:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/assumption-by-some-vegetarians-that-meat-is-murder-how-do-you-argue-with-this/487987/72 "2009-03-02T21:14:21Z")
> **[Does a plant feel pain when cut? - Answers](https://www.answers.com/Q/Does_a_plant_feel_pain_when_cut)** > > Plants can not feel painPlants can react to stimuli, but they have no central nervous system, so they cannot feel pain.Studies have been done on plants by reputable sources e.g. The Smithsonian, but they have merely showed plants reacting to... Just some food for thought on a plant’s ability to perceive pain. ---
**Author:** ![TooSchoolforCool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tooschoolforcool/32/19621_2.png) [@TooSchoolforCool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TooSchoolforCool)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2009, 9:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/assumption-by-some-vegetarians-that-meat-is-murder-how-do-you-argue-with-this/487987/73 "2009-03-02T21:21:11Z")
> [@DrCube](#): > > Indeed. Calling the vast majority of the human race “murderers” is unlikely to sway many minds, and is very likely to invite aggressive, emotional arguments as people become defensive. It is one thing to have an honest discussion about the morality of our treatment of animals; it is quite another to be insulted by members of PETA. But you, like a lot of people, seem to be so obsessed with PETA that you can’t easily see past it to the actual debate, which exists regardless of their trolling tactics. > [@](#): > > You are not going to convince many people when you start out accusing them of “morally abhorrent” behavior. I’m not sure how one would legitimately or even sensibly object to something without calling it what, by their understanding it is. I don’t think first trimester abortion is wrong, for instance, but this is because I have a particular concept of what is morally valuable and what isn’t. That pro-life people call abortion “morally abhorrent” is simply them being true to their differing concepts, which we can then debate the legitimacy of. I don’t agree with them, and I wouldn’t want people unduly swayed by their cheap emotionalisms, which as I’ve said is a fair objection. But I also don’t begrudge them their use of the terminology right off the bat: I simply object to it, and I offer reasons why I think it’s wrong. > [@](#): > > Furthermore, the Animal Kingdom encompasses such a huge range of creatures, it will be very hard to cover all animals when you argue against eating them. Unless your REASONS for finding “murder” to be abhorrent have to do with causing harm to motile, eukaryotic, heterotrophic organisms that lack cell walls. As I noted, you’re being pretty obviously insincere here. Almost no one that objects to animal suffering does so based on the mere idea that simply because something it alive in the scientific sense that it deserves moral consideration. So why are you babbling on about something that YOU know to be a straw man, that you know _I_ know is a straw man, and so on? What’s the point? > [@](#): > > What I’m getting at is you can’t just say that killing animals is bad. You have to separate _some_ animals from _others_, and in doing so must justify that categorization. Anyone that knows anything about this debate knows that the key element of consideration is the capacity to suffer. That’s why I really don’t see what the purpose of talking about single celled organisms with no nervous system was. > [@](#): > > I believe it is self-evident to most normal humans that people belong in the category of “not okay to kill under normal circumstances”. Well, imho, assertions of anything being “self-evident” are generally just sort of lazy, from an ethical standpoint. Thousands of years ago people considered all sorts of things that we find abhorrent to be “self-evident.” And it took countless years of history, cultural development, and argument to come to your current understanding, so evidently it WASN’T always “self-evident” that, say, black slaves were really as human or deserving of protection from suffering and indignity as anyone else. That’s precisely why we need to present and debate “from-first principles” ethical arguments, rather than relying on what usually turns out to be little more than received cultural convention. ---
**Author:** ![HoboStew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/f17d59/32.png) [@HoboStew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HoboStew)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2009, 9:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/assumption-by-some-vegetarians-that-meat-is-murder-how-do-you-argue-with-this/487987/74 "2009-03-02T21:23:29Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > You asked why killing a plant is better than killing an animal and I gave an answer: lacking nervous systems, plants don’t feel pain. If a dog’s tail is stepped on or its leg broken, you might argue it’s not possible to objectively prove the animal is feeling pain, but it’s nonetheless pretty obvious that it is. While I would argue that all you know about that the dog is that it APPEARS to be in pain, I’m happy to drop this for now. Lets get back to the first sentence. You argue that the difference between eating plants and animals is the pain/discomfort involved in the animal that isn’t in the plant. So to get back to my previous question - what is the difference between eating plants and eating a sustainably farmed, happy california cow killed instantly without pain? [QUOTE=Bruce Wayne] Just some food for thought on a plant’s ability to perceive pain. [/QUOTE] Interesting. Not sure people will ever buy it, but it is interesting. ---
**Author:** ![TooSchoolforCool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tooschoolforcool/32/19621_2.png) [@TooSchoolforCool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TooSchoolforCool)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2009, 9:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/assumption-by-some-vegetarians-that-meat-is-murder-how-do-you-argue-with-this/487987/75 "2009-03-02T21:30:20Z")
> [@Cheesesteak](#): > > Or, they could use the perfectly accurate word “slaughter” instead. “Murder” is a loaded term, and is intended to evoke a particular response by comparing the slaughter of animals for food, with the unlawful killing of people. > > If you have a solid argument for ethical vegetarianism, you shouldn’t need to play word games to get your point across. True… but you seem to neglect that denying it to animals is equally loaded in the opposite direction: as someone else noted, it’s basically tantamount to asserting that current convention holds sway simply by virtue of being a convention. That’s not very compelling either. That animal rights activists call it murder is a very clear way of understanding precisely what it is that they are getting at. As long as no one is unduly confused or swayed, I think we can all get a good grasp of what is actually going on and at stake. Note that I don’t personally think that most animals can be “murdered” in that they simply don’t seem to have concepts of death and loss that I think are key to the core concept. But some especially social animals might (apes, cetaceans, etc.). But I don’t de facto think it makes much sense to limit a word like “murder” to only those beings who happen to have a particular class of DNA. If an intelligent race of aliens appeared on earth, and someone killed one, I don’t think we’d have any problem at all calling it murder. Likewise, when a comatose person with severe mental defects is smothered by a pillow, we call it murder even though this individual has nowhere near the active mental capacity of a chimp, who we deny the term. I think there’s some important discrepancies in usage there to be explored. ---
**Author:** ![TooSchoolforCool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tooschoolforcool/32/19621_2.png) [@TooSchoolforCool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TooSchoolforCool)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2009, 9:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/assumption-by-some-vegetarians-that-meat-is-murder-how-do-you-argue-with-this/487987/76 "2009-03-02T21:32:12Z")
> [@erislover](#): > > In quite a few cases I would disagree with this, because improperly using words is exactly what makes people think there is some substance to be argued when there isn’t; but, in this case, I agree that arguing over the word “murder” is not productive. The word is used for its shock value, but the point stands without it. That’s actually my point, not an argument against it. The point is that the definition of words is never something over which there is really anything at stake OTHER than confusion/clarity about the actual underlying ideas under debate. That people think there is substance to something based just on the definition of a word, that is, as you note, often a mistake. The substance comes from the ideas under debate, not the particular way we employ to chop up these concepts into discrete terms. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2009, 9:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/assumption-by-some-vegetarians-that-meat-is-murder-how-do-you-argue-with-this/487987/77 "2009-03-02T21:32:42Z")
> [@HoboStew](#): > > So to get back to my previous question - what is the difference between eating plants and eating a sustainably farmed, happy california cow killed instantly without pain? I doubt it’s really plausible to kill animals humanely on a large scale because screwups are inevitable when you do anything on a large scale. ---
**Author:** ![TooSchoolforCool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tooschoolforcool/32/19621_2.png) [@TooSchoolforCool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TooSchoolforCool)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2009, 9:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/assumption-by-some-vegetarians-that-meat-is-murder-how-do-you-argue-with-this/487987/78 "2009-03-02T21:36:01Z")
> [@HoboStew](#): > > You argue that the difference between eating plants and animals is the pain/discomfort involved in the animal that isn’t in the plant. So to get back to my previous question - what is the difference between eating plants and eating a sustainably farmed, happy california cow killed instantly without pain? Just to be clear on this issue, my answer to this would be “pretty much nothing.” Cows don’t have any real capability that we’ve ever observed to conceptualize and fear death, or loss of a planned/forseen future existence. Aside from mother/calf bonds, they also don’t really seem to have any real sense of social structure for which the sudden, unexplained removal of one cow causes much stress or worry. This is why I think the ultimate step in animal rights will ultimately be genetically/developmentally altered meat organisms that have no higher brain functions/pain experience (not to mention hopefully being more efficient means of producing food). ---
**Author:** ![Cheesesteak](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cheesesteak/32/3694_2.png) [@Cheesesteak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cheesesteak)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2009, 9:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/assumption-by-some-vegetarians-that-meat-is-murder-how-do-you-argue-with-this/487987/79 "2009-03-02T21:40:51Z")
> [@TooSchoolforCool](#): > > That animal rights activists call it murder is a very clear way of understanding precisely what it is that they are getting at. You mean “foofarung” right? Animal rights activists call it foofarung, because it’s the concept that matters, not the exact word. Except, it is the word murder that they’re choosing to use, because the word murder has a particular connotation and emotional impact that “slaughter” and “foofarung” apparently don’t have. The use of the word murder is not a red herring, it’s the cornerstone of the debate. ---
**Author:** ![Marienee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/73ab20/32.png) [@Marienee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marienee)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2009, 9:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/assumption-by-some-vegetarians-that-meat-is-murder-how-do-you-argue-with-this/487987/80 "2009-03-02T21:41:08Z")
It’s funny how different people approach morality; my own father felt it was immoral on some level for his children to think that meat and fish comes in small clean packets. So we were all, well, not required exactly but given the opportunity to experience the process – we were taught to kill and clean chickens, ducks, and fish individually. My grandparents kept a few animals so there was also the annual pig-killing which is a participatory event and all hands were on deck at least for the cleaning part. Nobody had enough land for a cow so that was not part of my education. Deer hunting was however and several of my sibs (including me) did that also. I quite miss venison, people don’t hunt here. Or if they do, they don’t offer me any. That said, I think the fellow in the article misstates the vegetarian position his wife appears to have: it seems to me that what she is saying is that the fact that we can eat animals raised exclusively for food does not mean that we necessarily should. She wants her children to make a conscious choice, one way or the other, which most people do not do – were they raised vegetarian or omnivore. There is nothing wrong with valuing a conscious choice made in a context where the choice is available – as in most of the Western world. In some ways, her position is not so far off from my father’s, now that I think of it. The point is that the eater of meat is cousin to the butcher or however the expression goes – my father wanted us to know and understand that killing an animal is part of eating meat, which he felt must be accepted on a very personal and concrete level and it seems to me so does the woman in the article. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/assumption-by-some-vegetarians-that-meat-is-murder-how-do-you-argue-with-this/487987.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/assumption-by-some-vegetarians-that-meat-is-murder-how-do-you-argue-with-this/487987.md?page=5)