# Eating Meat is Ethical/Unethical **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [March 28, 2012, 5:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/eating-meat-is-ethical-unethical/617064 "2012-03-28T17:22:17Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 14
**Author:** ![Arnold\_Winkelried](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Arnold\_Winkelried](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arnold_Winkelried)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2012, 11:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/eating-meat-is-ethical-unethical/617064/261 "2012-04-06T23:49:53Z")
> [@XT](#): > > But there isn’t. Nor is there a way to have a modern, technological society such as we have without harming those animals. If those things are unavoidable for society to function, then I’ll accept them. The thing is, killing animals to eat them _is_ avoidable. Unless you can demonstrate that raising a field of corn will result in more animal deaths (animal deaths people usually care about, i.e. an insect death is usually considered less evil than the death of a mammal with a larger brain) than using the same field to raise a herd of cattle that will then be slaughtered, I will think that eating plants causes less harm to animals. > [@](#): > > A better analogy would be ‘if I drive a car to work, at some point I’ll kill an animal by my choice of driving that vehicle. I accept that this will happen, weigh the harm verse good, cost verse benefits, and choose to drive the car despite my certain knowledge that doing so will cause harm and pain’. The analogy should be “I have the choice to drive my car to work on the road without squashing animals on the way, or driving the car to work while running over animals on the way. Which is better?” > [@](#): > > So, yes…I agree that we should avoid making animals suffer without good reason. I disagree that ‘it tastes good’ does not constitute a good reason for an animal bred specifically to provide humans with food should not be killed to make that food. I really don’t understand the distinction of whether or not the animal was raised for food. If you go shoot a deer in the wild or a cow in a field, the pain and suffering for the animal will be the same, assuming the same method of death. I don’t agree that, since the cow was raised to be eaten, that makes it better. In a way, it’s almost creepier. And on the justification, we’ll have to agree to disagree. The “it tastes good” justification doesn’t seem to me to be any better than reasoning of the individual who will kill animals or hurt them just because “he enjoys it”. ---
**Author:** ![drewtwo99](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d07c76/32.png) [@drewtwo99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drewtwo99)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2012, 12:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/eating-meat-is-ethical-unethical/617064/262 "2012-04-07T00:12:01Z")
Well, I am going to say that I am going to exit this debate after one final post. I cannot stress enough that whether or not you enjoy eating meat, you are causing suffering to animals. It is not even clear that converting all land to a vegetarian diet will cause less animals to suffer, and some university research has indicated that converting land like that which cattle graze on to sustaining a vegetarian diet would actually result in more animal deaths. (the cite has already been presented in this thread). We all make choices in our lives wherein the end result is that animals suffer and die, ‘intentional’ or not. If you know in your heart that animals die as a result of a loaf of bread that you bought in a grocery store, it doesn’t matter whether those animals were ‘intentionally’ killed to make that bread. Vegetarianism has not conclusively or substantially been proven to reduce animal suffering in any meaningful way. If I ate nothing but free-range beef and poultry, wild-caught fish, hunted deer and elk and whatnot, and the regular plant foods, I’d be limiting the suffering of animals many, many times more than someone who ate an entirely vegetarian diet, by virtue of the fact that a lot of my calories would be coming from 1 animal death rather than dozens, hundreds or thousands that go into harvesting corn, wheat, or other ‘vegetarian’ foods. There are plenty, PLENTY of good reasons to be a vegetarian and I highly advocate for people to limit their meat consumption, for health reasons, environmental reasons, sustainability reasons, and so forth. But there is no good ethical reason based on least harm principal or limiting the suffering to be a vegetarian, and you are fooling yourself if you think that there is at best, or you’re a blatant hypocrite at worst. I obviously can’t convince you otherwise at this point, so I’m going to bow out. ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2012, 12:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/eating-meat-is-ethical-unethical/617064/263 "2012-04-07T00:12:50Z")
[QUOTE=gamerunknown] According to the two studies I posted a few pages ago, vegetarians are less likely to be obese than the general population and have a higher lifespan on average. [/QUOTE] So what? That has nothing to do with the fact that a vegan diet takes more careful monitoring and thought than a diet that has meat in it. > [@](#): > > This may be a function of avoiding processed meat, as another poster pointed out. It’s probably more a function of the fact that vegans are more tightly focused on heath consciousness, represent a very small percentage of the population, tend to exercise more and are generally in better shape than the general population, but regardless, it says nothing about the fact that they have to be more careful in their monitoring and thought about their diet. > [@](#): > > In order to have a healthy omnivorous diet, one has to carefully monitor one’s diet or risk death. No, that is completely untrue. You do not have to carefully monitor an omnivorous diet in the same way that you have to if you are on a vegan diet. That’s simple fact, re-enforced by the fact that Americans, in general do NOT carefully monitor their diet, overwhelmingly have an omnivorous diet, and have a high life expectancy. That they generally over eat and specifically have a sedentary lifestyle are more contributing factors to health issues than the fact that they eat meat. Europeans, who are generally more active while still having omnivorous diets do much better, health wise. -XT ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2012, 12:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/eating-meat-is-ethical-unethical/617064/264 "2012-04-07T00:35:20Z")
[QUOTE=Arnold Winkelried] The analogy should be “I have the choice to drive my car to work on the road without squashing animals on the way, or driving the car to work while running over animals on the way. Which is better?” [/QUOTE] No, this analogy doesn’t work either, because causing deaths or harm isn’t within your power to avoid. It’s going to happen, so your only choice is in limiting the harm you do. Same with eating meat or not eating meat. Animals will still be harmed, so your only real choice is how much harm your ‘footprint’ will have. It’s debatable and I think highly speculative whether more animals will be harmed if we all switched to a completely vegan diet and did not use animal products. I think more animals will be ‘harmed’, depending on ones definition of ‘harmed’…and those additional animal deaths will be of wild animals, instead of animals that are bred and raised to be food, but that’s simply my uneducated opinion so grain of salt. Regardless, animals WILL be harmed either way, as they will be by your use of every product of our modern technological world, so to me any lines drawn are arbitrary, and reflect ones willingness or unwillingness to face reality and try and justify your use of those products…or attempt to negate someone else justification. > [@](#): > > If those things are unavoidable for society to function, then I’ll accept them. The thing is, killing animals to eat them is avoidable. Unless you can demonstrate that raising a field of corn will result in more animal deaths (animal deaths people usually care about, i.e. an insect death is usually considered less evil than the death of a mammal with a larger brain) than using the same field to raise a herd of cattle that will then be slaughtered, I will think that eating plants causes less harm to animals. But you continue to use them, making a conscious choice to do so. Having a coke IS an avoidable choice, since it is purely for ones enjoyment. Yet, animals are harmed making and bringing that to you. It’s a choice you, I and everyone who drinks a soda, drives a car, uses a computer, etc etc, makes when we use those things that aren’t directly related to our survival. As for the later, there have been several links in this thread for cites about the various animals harmed in the process of growing, harvesting and distributing crops. Whether these are animals that people ‘care’ about, well…I couldn’t say. That’s another arbitrary line being drawn, I’d say. Most people don’t ‘care’ about cows, sheep, pigs or chickens, except insofar as they provide food or products that they DO care about. > [@](#): > > I really don’t understand the distinction of whether or not the animal was raised for food. If you go shoot a deer in the wild or a cow in a field, the pain and suffering for the animal will be the same, assuming the same method of death. I don’t agree that, since the cow was raised to be eaten, that makes it better. In a way, it’s almost creepier. And to me, killing an animal in the wild that you don’t need to kill is creepier. Again, it’s an arbitrary line. To ME, an animal raised to be food, who’s sole existence depends completely on humans to provide it with sustenance, care, and in some cases even assistance both in breeding and birthing, gets a pretty good deal for it’s sacrifice. Deer are a bad example, since in the US anyway there is no top predators in most cases to keep the deer or wild pig population in check. But an animal in the wild that DOES have that balance…well, I’m a bit more hinked out, personally, about humans going out and whacking those simply for the fun of whacking them and mounting their heads on a wall and maybe eating some of the meat, or maybe not. MMV, to be sure, but that’s creepier to me than animals bred and raised on a farm, given all the food they want (something all animals prize), minimal medical care (something a wild animal is unlikely in the extreme to receive), and then later killed for it’s meat…something wild animals ultimately have happen to them anyway. -XT ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Colossus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.colossus/32/9423_2.png) [@Dr.Colossus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Colossus)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2012, 3:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/eating-meat-is-ethical-unethical/617064/265 "2012-04-07T03:46:43Z")
> [@drewtwo99](#): > > I’ve read this post several times and I honestly have no idea what it is you’re trying to argue. > > I never said anything about weighting the suffering of a domesticated food animal against a dog or human or anything like that. > > I don’t think we should round up a bunch of animals and kill them, dogs or whatever. least harm principle. doing away with domestic pets would cause a lesser number of food animals to “suffer.” ---
**Author:** ![rick\_sanders](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/3e96dc/32.png) [@rick\_sanders](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rick_sanders)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2012, 6:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/eating-meat-is-ethical-unethical/617064/266 "2012-04-07T06:32:49Z")
whatchoo know about skeletal muscle fibers? [http://meatnumber5.bandcamp.com/track/line-em-up-shoot-em-down](http://meatnumber5.bandcamp.com/track/line-em-up-shoot-em-down) it’s actually safe to eat, even though the meat may have spoiled. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![genXmalcontent](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/8baadc/32.png) [@genXmalcontent](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/genXmalcontent)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2012, 6:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/eating-meat-is-ethical-unethical/617064/267 "2012-04-07T06:44:20Z")
> [@XT](#): > > That should have been ‘bred’…we don’t breed our food animals to be both the meat AND the wrappings for our sandwiches. 😛 > > -XT You are incorrect. You have forgotten the KFC Double Down sandwich. [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DZ0sHUXhkWM](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DZ0sHUXhkWM) ---
**Author:** ![genXmalcontent](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/8baadc/32.png) [@genXmalcontent](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/genXmalcontent)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2012, 6:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/eating-meat-is-ethical-unethical/617064/268 "2012-04-07T06:55:15Z")
> [@XT](#): > > So what? That has nothing to do with the fact that a vegan diet takes more careful monitoring and thought than a diet that has meat in it. > > It’s probably more a function of the fact that vegans are more tightly focused on heath consciousness, represent a very small percentage of the population, tend to exercise more and are generally in better shape than the general population, but regardless, it says nothing about the fact that they have to be more careful in their monitoring and thought about their diet. > > No, that is completely untrue. You do not have to carefully monitor an omnivorous diet in the same way that you have to if you are on a vegan diet. That’s simple fact, re-enforced by the fact that Americans, in general do NOT carefully monitor their diet, overwhelmingly have an omnivorous diet, and have a high life expectancy. That they generally over eat and specifically have a sedentary lifestyle are more contributing factors to health issues than the fact that they eat meat. Europeans, who are generally more active while still having omnivorous diets do much better, health wise. > > -XT Oh really? Have you seen the latest obesity stats? Look, I am not arguing against eating meat. What I am arguing against is the recklessness of the standard American diet. Whatever you choose to eat, monitor it. Just because we can eat most things doesn’t mean we should. I work with natural foods and have seen my share of unhealthy vegans, but I also see unhealthy omnys as well. ---
**Author:** ![gamerunknown](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/6bbea6/32.png) [@gamerunknown](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gamerunknown)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2012, 12:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/eating-meat-is-ethical-unethical/617064/269 "2012-04-07T12:48:25Z")
> [@XT](#): > > That has nothing to do with the fact that a vegan diet takes more careful monitoring and thought than a diet that has meat in it. What does the difficulty of securing a healthy diet have to do with the ethics of eating one? There’s no evidence to suggest that humans will be harmed more than helped by a vegan diet, so one can look to the suffering of other species next. You’re positing something that’s impossible to argue: the average omnivorous diet is sufficient to survive, but there is no such thing in an average vegetarian diet. If a vegetarian or vegan chooses to eschew a healthy diet, that’s evidence of neglect or the impossible luxury of imposing such a diet on the population… whereas if the average omnivorous diet causes suffering in both humans and animals, one is only permitted to argue about a hypothetical situation in which all animals are pasture fed and processed meat is an anachronism. > [@drewtwo99](#): > > If I ate nothing but free-range beef and poultry, wild-caught fish, hunted deer and elk and whatnot, and the regular plant foods, I’d be limiting the suffering of animals many, many times more than someone who ate an entirely vegetarian diet, by virtue of the fact that a lot of my calories would be coming from 1 animal death rather than dozens, hundreds or thousands that go into harvesting corn, wheat, or other ‘vegetarian’ foods. Which regular plant foods? As far as I’m aware, it’s not possible to sustain a healthy diet without some harvested crops. Nor would it be possible for everyone to sustain such a diet (at least at the current rate of meat consumption), nor does your hypothetical have anything to do with avoiding the current meat on the marketplace. Remember, there’s no such thing as free-range beef. ---
**Author:** ![Trust](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b38774/32.png) [@Trust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trust)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2012, 1:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/eating-meat-is-ethical-unethical/617064/270 "2012-04-07T13:44:19Z")
> [@Stoid](#): > > According to whom or what? You? If that’s the standard, I can play too: > It’s our job to give animals a single purpose: to be our food. > > Wanna try again? > > True. I don’t think it’s even possible to adopt a chicken or an ewe, so what are you talking about? > > False. I “adopted” my dog. He is my property, by law. And glad I am, because that gives me the right to decide what happens to him and what happens to hims is lots of wonderful things that make him very happy. And I am beyond ok with that, I’m proud of myself because I’m a GREAT dog owner. If my dog had the ability to ponder the fact that he is my slave, that I own him, (and even though he’s frighteningly intelligent, being the part border collie that he is, he lacks that ability) he’d be 100% down with it, because he likes the fact that I’m the boss of him. He’s made to want one, and I’m it. > > According to whom? You? Do you really want to keep doing this? Simply saying that things just are a certain way that you want everyone to agree that they are is an incredibly bad debate strategy. Basically worthless. > > Nor, dare I say, do you, since you insist on declaring it immoral to eat meat in any circumstance that is not immediate and direct self-preservation. It is nothing of the kind. When you say you “own” your dog, can you treat it as property? Can you throw it or kick it? There are laws in place that prevent you from doing such a thing because we recognize that animals have a capacity to suffer. > [@Stoid](#): > > I mean, I don’t want to makeyour head explode by taking it this far, but I have news: morality is not something which is really “real”; it arises from purely human consideration of the idea. The natural world is entirely amoral (although not lacking in compassion, many animals are loving and compassionate) in the sense that there is no right or wrong, there is only life and doing what life requires for life to continue, and doing it is morally neutral. > > But, specifically as a result of our ginormous and complex brains, we have the power to consider things in a more esoteric manner, to contemplate the notion of morality and ethics. We are prompted to do so because we are social animals with a natural impulse to altruism and compassion. So we label things according to our beliefs and knowledge and experience. > > So it would be most excellent if you stopped talking about what is and is not as though moral questions rank alongside chemistry and physics in their binary character. They do not, they are philosophy, about as far from a hard and fast discipline as it is possible to get. > > So perhaps you should back up entirely and start there: what is morality? How do we come by our ethics? What makes our moral beliefs and choices what they are in relation to our fellow humans, and THEN you can address if its valid to extend those values without modification to non-human beings, and why. In other words, you do not believe that something is ethical or unethical since nature is neither of the two? I have described my ethics as doing what others would want done to themselves. When there are huge conflicts of interest, it requires using Utilitarianism and the Least Harm Principle to demonstrate without a shadow of a doubt that we are justified in breaking the golden rule. ---
**Author:** ![Trust](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b38774/32.png) [@Trust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trust)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2012, 1:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/eating-meat-is-ethical-unethical/617064/271 "2012-04-07T13:47:00Z")
> [@Stoid](#): > > There is meat now that does not require suffering to create. It does not require suffering to produce meat at all. Please stop saying that as though eating meat and suffering are identical, or even inextricably connected, because it’s a lie. I am assuming you are referring to an animal that lived out its life, died of natural causes and then we ate it? I guess if that is how you get your meat then you are correct. > [@Stoid](#): > > False. Anyone can search Google and discover the things people assume are health benefits based on hopelessly inexact methods of research. Do you disagree with the ADA? > [@Stoid](#): > > You need to define your terms. What is “the **realization** of suffering”? Your assertion that Bessie seeing Bluebell die and freaking out because you believe Bessie is having a thoughtful **realization** that death is coming for her, or even that suffering is coming for her? Well, no, it’s not - Bessie is having a thought-free, inborn fear response to the stimulus of seeing, hearing, and smelling Bluebell die violently, she is not having a conscious consideration of what death or even suffering actually is. > > To sell a Bessie who is having “realizations” about things, you have to start by showing me that Bessie is even aware of herself as an individual being at all, much less an individual being with a finite existence. And good luck with that, since it’s a toughie for almost any animals with brains less developed than great apes, cetaceans and I believe elephants have been shown to be self-aware as well. Outside of that… no. If the animals see each other being killed, they will start to freak out. So essentially we agree on this fact. You just think the freaking out part is a natural response as oppose to a thought? Are you saying when a human freaks out, it is from a thought? But an animal freaking out is from a stimuli such as a machine? You’re not saying because the mechanism by which the cow freaks out is different, that fear of the cow should not be taken into account right? Your wording at points makes it seem like we are exactly on the same page and then at other points it seems like we are not. I think a good analogy is a two year old. A two year old does not understand death. None of them want to die. Or put another way, none are volunteering to die since we have evolved to attempt to stay alive. We also know that dogs and cats do not pass the mirror test and are not aware of themselves so the same concept should apply to them. > [@Stoid](#): > > No. Believing that everyone presented with this amazing alternative will find it satisfying and agree to give up the real thing as a result is a fantasy. Unless we reach Star Trekkian levels of ability to reorder molecules, we will not be replicating meat to everyone’s satisfaction any time in the remote future, forget near. When you take all benefits into account and teach people what those benefits are, I think most people will certainly make the switch. I like > [@Stoid](#): > > So your argument is basically that genuine animal flesh is the primitive version of a scientifically formulated copy of animal flesh and as soon as we perfect it, we’re golden? That’s kinda like saying that we can buid the perfect dildo that will be as good or better for all women than a real life penis… and that’s never going to happen either. Technology that is better than eariler technology is a given. Technology that is better than natural? Nothing’s coming to mind as evidence of _that_ being a reasonable assertion. Interesting example 😃 What about beer, bread, yogurt, cheese, or wine? All involved processing ingredients from natural sources. Cultured meat would be the same as meat but produced without all of the devestating effects. What about future cultured organs? [http://www.ted.com/talks/anthony\_atala\_growing\_organs\_engineering\_tissue.html](http://www.ted.com/talks/anthony_atala_growing_organs_engineering_tissue.html) What about tissue engineered wound healing? > [@Stoid](#): > > Is that what I’m arguing with? Because it has appeared that I’m arguing with the statement “All living beings want to be treated the way I, Trust believe that they want to be treated, and I believe that they want to be treated pretty much the way I would want to be treated. And I arrive at this belief and statement by ignoring all evidence that disagrees and making no case for the legitimacy of my beliefs about the nature of animal brains and reactions and behavior.” Please point out where I say animals want to be treated how I want to be treated. When I say animals want to do things different from us such as dust bathe, root, etc. this is ignored or seen as common sense somehow. But when I say they experience pain just like us, then I am projecting my own feelings onto them somehow. > [@Stoid](#): > > Your argument is completely circular. You argue thaat the only morally correct way to think is to view all non-plant based life as equivalent to human life and must therefore be treated and considered on the same basis as human life. But since you know for a fact that others do not agree with this starting place, what do you hope to accomplish by continuing to treat it as something which everyone should already be agreed upon coming into this debate? Please point out where I said all non-plant life is equivalent to human life. I certainly said that all beings that are aware of the world should be equally considered if that is what you mean. > [@Stoid](#): > > You need to back up. Repeating the “golden rule” and referring to all non-human animal life as “others” in the same way all non-me human beings are “others” is hopelessly empty and meaningless out the gate. It’s a false premise that you ahve made no attempt to validate or even made a really good attempt to argue for, you just keep asserting it as a given just as plain as the sunrise. You seem to admit that animals feel pain. If they can feel pain and have the capacity to suffer, why should their interests not be taking into account? You say I have not proven that the golden rule should apply to them but how do you get much clearer than this? They can suffer. So why should we ignore that suffering? > [@Stoid](#): > > Completely false. Beyond false. > [@Stoid](#): > > That is a fact. Not a fact I put forth to suggest that animal pain, suffering, fear and stress are to be ignored (and really, I have to say I resent the hell out of you saying that, because I haven’t come close) because I’m pretty much the last person who would ever believe or feel that way. I was drawing a distinction, a very important distinction, between the fact that they absolutely do experience fear and pain and stress as a result of certain stimuli, and the idea that because they do they _must_ be capable of _ **thinking** _ about what’s happening, _ **understand** _ it, be self-aware to start with, and then _ **make the connection** _ that because it’s happening to another animal it will happen to them. They do not, they cannot. (At least food animals can’t, I wouldn’t swear to the same with a dolphin or a chimp) none of that means their sufering isn’t real and I never suggested otherwise. I am not saying they are self-aware if that is what you thought I meant. I realize that farm animals (and dogs/cats/babies) are not self aware. I am not sure what the lack of being self aware has to do with the ethics of killing a dog/cat/baby/farm animal though. I don’t think you are, but if you were claiming that someone can be killed ethically because they are not self aware then obviously this criteria applies to human children under a year and a half old. > [@Stoid](#): > > Easy: raise free range, slaughter fast and humanely. I’m really hoping they perfect using oxygen deprivation because that would really rock: send them out totally euphoric! > > Suffering gone. Meat remains. Perfect! As you know, free range is a term that can be abused since it does not specify the amount of time outdoors or the size of the outdoor area so I will assume you mean more than just the label. Free range also does not take into account antibiotics that are used in chickens that make them so large that many of their legs break underneath them. This assumes that castration, tail docking, tooth-clipping, de-tusking, disk-or septum nose rings, and debeaking are not used. It also assumes that weaning the animals from their mothers is done at an appropriate age. It assumes that the industry would not give the male dairy calves for veal. Currently, livestock production uses over 30% of the world’s land surface so this assumes that even with the exponential increase in demand for meat coming, we will have plenty of land to clear for more room to give the animals. In other words, we have a long way to go and a lot of land to clear to get to this being an option. > [@Stoid](#): > > If you want to talk about slavery, start another thread. And there I think you will get very little action, because no one wants to participate in or defend slavery of humans. This is related to the topic. If we do not look at our history, we are destined to repeat it. Slavery was seen as common place just as our consumption of meat is. Every defense given for meat consumption has already been given for why we should have slavery. > [@Stoid](#): > > But ownership of animals, in and of itself, considered apart from the conditions and treatment they may receive, is not a problem for me at all, as I’ve said many times. Treat 'em right and it can even be a better life than any they might otherwise have. My dog is my slave, as I said, and he loves it. He’d be utterly distraught if he was “set free”. I reject any argument that has a premise based on essentially, ‘it could be worse’. > [@Stoid](#): > > But then you seem to think that suffering can be eliminated at all, which I do not believe. It can be lessened, but ask the Dalai Lama: to be alive is to suffer. I embrace > Number 5 means to me that pursuit of the impossible is an ego-driven and empty way to focus my attention and effort, and attempting to _eliminate_ suffering at all is a rejection of the inescapable truth of 1-4. So what actions make the ground on which I stand? To act within truth and not seek to soothe my own sensibilities, but to accept responsibility for what I do and try to do better and work towards others doing better. Eating animals is not wrong, it is normal and natural and healthy and good. Torturing them in life is none of those things and it is not necessary and it must be changed. Just because there will always be suffering, it does not mean that we should not do everything we can to prevent it. You make many logical fallacies. Slavery was ‘normal’. You make the naturalistic fallacy. Meat is generally not regarded as healthy (see ADA quote about preventing certain diseases with a vegetarian/vegan lifestyle earlier). I agree that torturing the animals needs to be changed. > [@Stoid](#): > > As for the question of feeding the seven million… well, it’s a bigger question than a mere little debate about the ethics of meat eating. We’re all headed off a cliff in a number of ways, and maybe that’s not such a bad thing in the end… I would like to try to find solutions for these issues. Even if you think it is a lost cause in the long run. > [@XT](#): > > You used the ‘luxury’ argument several times, with strongly negative connotations. And you’ve thrown this debate into an ‘Ethical/Unethical’ framework, which pretty much ties into the whole ‘good or bad’ thingy. If you want to back peddle on this as well, that’s fine…but don’t try and look all innocent about your own arguments. You are really stuck on this luxury thing. Something being a luxury means it is simply not needed to live. You then make the assumption that I am saying luxury=bad, non-luxury=good when I never said anything remotely like that. > [@XT](#): > > Well, it’s your own inconsistency, unfortunately. Whether animals are killed for food directly or killed in the process of the creation of food is all the same to the animals that die. For you to exist, especially in a high tech society that you obviously are part of, animals are going to suffer and die. They are suffering and dying so you can drink that coke, air condition your house and eat your tofurkey dinner. Most people accept that. You rationalize and attempt to take some sort of moral high ground so you can feel smug about your choices while ignoring the real costs. People. Glass houses. Hypocrisy. Sophistry. So because I am trying to limit that suffering and I fully admit that I am being unethical, I am somehow the hypocrite? > [@XT](#): > > Ah…so, I’m a liar, ehe? Yet you’ve been shown cites earlier in this thread (hell, on this page) that you’ve yet to address with anything but accusations of lying. You’ve also had it explained to you several times already how crops themselves cost lives, and how all the OTHER things you use daily (like that coke…or like that computer you are tying on) cost lives as well. I have said this many times, but just because we cause some suffering, it does not justify causing even more suffering. I have addressed the Davis study in my earlier posts. > [@XT](#): > > Would it cost more lives in terms of animals to switch over to a completely meat free existence, attempting to do the vaguely defined ‘least harm’? Absolutely I believe that, despite your attempts to call me a liar. And even leaving aside the larger number of animals that would be killed by the necessity of putting more ground under cultivation in order to make up the difference that is currently filled by meat, you have those ‘10 billion land animals’. See, if we stopped eating meat, then their numbers would drop…possibly to zero in some cases, but even if some how you were able to get funding for your farm animal sanctuaries, it would be to a few hundreds or maybe a few thousands. That ALONE is going to cause large numbers of animals who would have lived to not exist in the future. And, of course, it doesn’t even take into account all the other disruptions that such a move would have, and how that would further impact the animal world. Today, many products come from the fact that when we butcher animals we often use ‘everything but the squeal’. There are a whole host of things that rely on secondary or tertiary animal products that have nothing to do with eating meat that alternatives would have to be found for. Please cite this and explain your logic. We have three main scenarios people have proposed: 1. We continue on with our current system where we kill over 10 billion land animals in the U.S. alone every year. Other countries demand for meat is expected to rise quickly. We continue to have to create seven pounds of crops to create one pound of meat, effectively, indirectly killing seven times the amount of various animals in the harvest. 2. We switch to a cultured meat / vegetarian / vegan society. No longer do we need to artificially inseminate billions of animals and there is no longer a need to kill billions of animals or exploit them in our food system at all. Since we do not need to feed them massive amounts of crops, those crops will now go to feed the humans that need it. It also indirectly kills around 1/7th the amount of various animals in the harvest compared to conventional food production. 3. We switch to a grass-fed pasture raised society. We indirectly kill about three times the number of animals (once we take into account the amount of food produced comparing growing crops to killing the animals directly). We still have to worry about all of the animal welfare issues. We still have to worry about the environment issues. Currently over 30% of the earth’s land surface is covered with livestock production. Would people give up other meat? Would people pay more for their meat? Is switching to this model feasible, let alone a good option? > [@XT](#): > > Of COURSE it’s needed. If you don’t eat meat then you have to supplement your diet to make sure you get all the things that you could more easily get from meat. Large portions of the worlds population rely on the fact that they have meat in their diet because they don’t have the freaking LUXURY (the REAL luxury) of being able to go to Whole Foods and get a full vegan diet, nor the resources to cater to that luxury. Have you noticed that most vegans aren’t exactly the poorest members of the population?? Have you ever considered why that is? Please see the quote from the ADA earlier about how vegetarianism/veganism is fine for all stages of life. You make a good point about it being difficult to be vegan. > [@XT](#): > > So, you handwave it away. You’ve already been shown that crops cause harm to animals. Did you think coke magically materialized from the ether? No, I’m not going to cite, again, something you’ve already been shown and you’ve completely failed to address in your ridiculous arguments. > > Does drinking a coke cancel out eating meat on some fantasy ethics scale? Nope. The fact that you wave your finger at one and your hands at the other merely shows you are a hypocrite. You are willing to cause animal suffering for something YOU desire (such as that coke) while attempting to take some fictional high moral ground about ethics concerning someone eating a steak. It’s actually pretty hilarious, to be honest. If there is suffering we are causing, we should do what we can to stop it? Fair statement? > [@Dr.Colossus](#): > > veganism is nothing different than religion. it’s something that has no natural “biological” law or basis (we are, physiologically, omnivorous.) > > there’s no universally applicable ethical case beyond “i buy into this so i think this…_and you should too_.” > > i can’t, in any way, after reading all this and hearing all the debate, separate veganism from ideological religion. > > it’s ok for you–but when you start trying to apply it to others as some kind of “universal law” it starts becoming very convoluted very quickly. Are you equating wanting to stop suffering with religion? Natural fallacy. While I agree that slavery is not a “universal law”, we can agree that it is wrong. I think we can agree at the very least that something needs to change with our current system of meat production. > [@drewtwo99](#): > > Trust, to answer your question about the charity analogy, in my point of view, switching from a responsible omnivorous diet to a vegetarian/vegan diet is like the difference between donating $1500 per year to charity, and $1600 per year to charity. Or something like that. Both groups of people are working to limit the suffering of animals, just like a person who donates 1500 bucks is contributing to charity in the same way someone who donates 1600 bucks. The problem and dispicable behavior would be if the guy who donated 1600 bucks was saying how much better he was for what he did and how everyone else who donated less was responsible for all this terrible, evil stuff. You are missing my point. My point is not to judge what you are doing to stop suffering. My point is that we need to first admit that we are causing suffering. If we simply make up rationalizations and claim that we are being ethical, then we will never make any steps to change the current system. > [@DSeid](#): > > I have to admit, this is sort of entertaining, in a head shaking kind of way. > > Let me see if I grasp the thrusts of **Trust** ’s positions: > > 1. Any entity that has awareness is entitled to application of what **Trust** believes to be “the advanced golden rule.” > > 2. That “advanced golden rule” directs us to put ourselves in the other entity’s place and imagine what it would want and only do things to the entity that it would want. **Trust** believes in studying the entities to determine what it would want but nevertheless, bottom line, imagines what (s)he would want. Humane slaughter is immaterial because **Trust** imagines that if (s)he was a cow (or another entity) (s)he would not want to have been conceived and reared and put to death before old age took him or her to provide food for another creature. Therefore a cow must not want that, therefore bringing them into the world and killing them before old age takes them is “unethical.” > > 3. **Trust** believes that “awareness”, however such a term is defined, to begin with insects. Multiple requests by several posters to accept and define gradations of “awareness”, variations of degrees of his/her “advanced golden rule”'s applicability, have been ignored, allowing only for the conclusion that the applicability is all or nothing. If by **Trust** ’s assessment an entity possesses “awareness” then the “advanced golden rule” applies. Period. > > 4. **Trust** would allow for humane killing of an entity with such awareness in order to save a human life. (A creature that truly is an obligate carnivore can ethically eat meat.) Sort of violating the standard set, as _I_ wouldn’t want to be killed to save a stranger’s life, let alone many of my kin in order to do so, but okay. > > 5. Following **Trust** ’s logic killing a mosquito whose bite would not kill you, but which was known to carry a Plasmodium sporozoite that causes malaria would not be ethical so long under a condition in which the malaria could be diagnosed and treated before death ensued. (Of course if I was a mosquito I would want to be free to feed on that which I am obligated to feed on and to reproduce so therefore preventing a mosquito from doing so, let alone _killing_ it, is unethical by application of “the advanced golden rule.”) Killing millions of them and depriving many more of adequate environments in which to reproduce would of course be even worse. It is not the mosquito’s fault they are infected with a Plasmodium species; we should find a way to treat them instead! > > Just so the argument is clear. 1. Correct. If someone has the capacity to suffer, we should take their lives into account. 2. If it were possible to separate exploitation and suffering, then you might have a point. 3. Please define the gradations comparing human awareness at different ages. When you show me the measures you are looking for, I will relate it to other beings. I have laid out simple gradations such as how insects do not feel pain, animals feel pain, humans feel pain. Animals experience various emotions similar to humans, etc. While this is enough to make high level calls (should we put animals through factory farms for instance), you seem to want me to type up a book describing every possible scenario of every possible species. Until then you have a way out of admitting the simply fact that what we are doing is wrong. 4. Carnivores are not capable of making ethical choices. Humans are. 5. You are able to defend yourself up to and including killing others. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Colossus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.colossus/32/9423_2.png) [@Dr.Colossus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Colossus)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2012, 1:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/eating-meat-is-ethical-unethical/617064/272 "2012-04-07T13:50:20Z")
i’ve reached the point where this conversation is just asinine and ludicrous. in some ways, i thought i saw both sides–but something snapped. gauging the “acceptable amount” of animal suffering is patently impossible, so any distinction a vegan makes is straight up _bullshit_. it’s completely made-up. it’s just a self-centered foma one tells themselves to alleviate some of the (apparent) guilt you carry. which is fine–for you. but \*\*ONLY \*\*you. what i can’t understand is why you want to make people who don’t feel guilt feel guilty. just like with religion, it’s cool for you, just…maybe stay out of the other people’s faces about it…? but here’s where things get stupid: as i pointed out, a vegan cannot advocate having pets. least-harm would actually mean elimination of domesticated companion animals. you could feed them as a vegan without breaking your own rules. and we needed dogs just as much as we needed livestock to overcome that leap out of hunter-gatherer. dogs fulfill the animal role we bred them for, as do livestock animals. all these creatures are fulfilling their roll, the same as in nature. if it’s not a matter of ethics when a frog lays eggs to have tadpoles to hatch to feed fish to feed bears, then ethics shouldn’t factor in when the same rolls are fulfilled to meet human needs. but it gets _stupider_: since there’s no scientific measure for the “too much suffering” line, how does one judge such things? can you ride a horse, at all? or can you for an hour a day but no more? or as much as you want? where’s the line? because, without animals, society would not be nearly as civilized as we are. it took domestication of livestock and beasts of burden in order to advance into the civilized age. vegans cannot, if you all represent their mentality, advocate riding or using a horse—so by extension, no westward expansion would have occurred in america. no real progress would have been made if we had left it up to vegans. travel would have been greatly limited. we would have never made the leap from hunter/gather to agriculture if we couldn’t use plow animals…the ones we bred into existence…for exactly that purpose. if you take away our dominance and utilization of and over fauna of the world, progress would be severely limited to a bygone era i can’t even imagine. literally Amish would be more advanced than a idealistic vegan society. if you want to say “that’s the way it had to be then–but it doesn’t have to be that way now,” then my rebuttal is: apparently, it does still have to be that way. otherwise it simply wouldn’t. this proposal of “animals as meat is obsolete” is premature. when it’s obsolete, it’ll actually be…obsolete. we’ll have moved on, and that will be that. that day may never come–but it’s sure not here now. animals and man have a symbiotic relationship which has yielded amazing progress. quality of life is tremendously better because of animals. we have medicines and various health sciences because of lab work done on animals. you want to talk about limiting suffering? if you take away the ability to test medicines and treatments on animals, and extrapolate that backwards, what do you get…? a plagued society with diseases we could never otherwise control. we would. be. doomed. sick. diseased. miserable. _dead_. human suffering would know no limits. this artificial law of ethics you try to apply is just that–artificial. it’s a mechanism to feel less guilty about your impact on the world, which, if you need that–_more power to you_. but stop trying to apply it universally. that’s _religion_. and we all know that won’t work. a vegan’s utopia society would have never transcended the dark ages. so stop reaping the benefit of centuries of proper and fair animal usage/consumption and pretending like _now you transcend it_. you’re just being a goody-two shoes…one who doesn’t farm their own food, one who doesn’t eschew the progress animals have given you up to this point. ---
**Author:** ![Trust](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b38774/32.png) [@Trust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trust)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2012, 2:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/eating-meat-is-ethical-unethical/617064/273 "2012-04-07T14:02:52Z")
> [@Arnold\_Winkelried](#): > > Sorry, I didn’t read the whole thread, so maybe this point has been made alread. I have to agree with the OP > … > Disclaimer: with all that being said, I am not a vegetarian. I eat meat, but I admit that the better ethical position would be to become a vegan or vegetarian. This is a perfect example. 1. We admit that we are being unethical in our current system of exploitation 2. We do what we can to prevent that suffering I relate number 2) to tithing. Some people give what is in their pocket. Some people give ten percent to their favorite charity. Some people reverse tithe because they have more than enough in this life. Some people give just about everything they have. The important part is that we admit there is an issue and we then give what we think is right. Cheerful giving. We do not judge others for what they are doing. Likewise, we might try to give up some meat, all meat, or become a weekday veg. We might not give up meat at all but give money to causes that are preventing the worst abuses. We might educate people on the abuses. We might give money or time to come up with alternatives. The important part is that we admit there is an issue and do what we think is right to help it. Until we admit that we are being unethical, we will never change anything. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Colossus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.colossus/32/9423_2.png) [@Dr.Colossus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Colossus)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2012, 2:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/eating-meat-is-ethical-unethical/617064/274 "2012-04-07T14:08:20Z")
> [@Trust](#): > > The important part is that we admit there is an issue and do what we think is right to help it. > > Until we admit that we are being unethical, we will never change anything. oh well. then problem solved. i don’t punch, kick or kill animals. i try not to kill bugs or spiders if i can relocate them without destroying them. i rescued a dog and give it a wonderful, happy life. i don’t hunt. looky there. i’m ethical. and i still get to eat the daylights out of steak. but according to this new broad-stroke you’ve allowed, almost everyone is ethical to whatever degree we feel there’s a problem. almost everyone on the planet is, save for some heartless monsters. ---
**Author:** ![Trust](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b38774/32.png) [@Trust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trust)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2012, 2:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/eating-meat-is-ethical-unethical/617064/275 "2012-04-07T14:09:02Z")
> [@Arnold\_Winkelried](#): > > Sorry, I didn’t read the whole thread, so maybe this point has been made alread. I have to agree with the OP, with a similar reasoning but elaborating (or perhaps differing) on a few points. > > - Most people will agree that we should not harm animals without a good reason. By animals, I mean animals close to human, e.g. mammals. Simple example: take a bunch of dogs or cats in the town square and kick them around or beat them with a stick. Most people will disapprove of this behaviour and some will try to stop you. It may even be illegal in some jurisdictions. > > - I see several people here making the plant comparison. The equivalency to plants is clearly false if we look at what our society believes and practices. Simple example: burn down a field of corn that belongs to you. No one will care (disregarding the nitpicking about smoke, fear of the fire spreading, etc.) Now fill the same field with cows and burn them alive. Most people will say this is barbaric and be disgusted. We have more empathy with creatures that are more similar to us. > > - If we shouldn’t harm animals without a good reason, what constitutes a good reason? Is “because it tastes good” a good enough reason? I would argue no. I would say, “if it is necessary for survival” would be a good enough reason. And we all know that eating animals is not necessary for survival, as a matter of fact a vegetarian diet can be just as healthy (some people will argue that it’s healthier, but I’m not prepared to go down that road because again we will get lost in nitpicky details.) > > The tricky part would be to determine, which living creatures is it unethical to eat? Where do you draw the line? > Sample spectrum: at one end humans, brain-dead humans who cannot be revived, dead humans, then chimpanzee, gorilla, etc. all the way down to grains or mushrooms. > > My thought would be that the plant/animal line would be a reasonable division. Until we create Star Trek style replicators that can make food out of dirt. > > Disclaimer: with all that being said, I am not a vegetarian. I eat meat, but I admit that the better ethical position would be to become a vegan or vegetarian. > [@Dr.Colossus](#): > > i’ve reached the point where this conversation is just asinine and ludicrous. > in some ways, i thought i saw both sides–but something snapped. > > gauging the “acceptable amount” of animal suffering is patently impossible, so any distinction a vegan makes is straight up _bullshit_. it’s completely made-up. > it’s just a self-centered foma one tells themselves to alleviate some of the (apparent) guilt you carry. which is fine–for you. but \*\*ONLY \*\*you. > > what i can’t understand is why you want to make people who don’t feel guilt feel guilty. > > just like with religion, it’s cool for you, just…maybe stay out of the other people’s faces about it…? > > but here’s where things get stupid: > as i pointed out, a vegan cannot advocate having pets. least-harm would actually mean elimination of domesticated companion animals. you could feed them as a vegan without breaking your own rules. > > and we needed dogs just as much as we needed livestock to overcome that leap out of hunter-gatherer. dogs fulfill the animal role we bred them for, as do livestock animals. all these creatures are fulfilling their roll, the same as in nature. if it’s not a matter of ethics when a frog lays eggs to have tadpoles to hatch to feed fish to feed bears, then ethics shouldn’t factor in when the same rolls are fulfilled to meet human needs. > > but it gets _stupider_: since there’s no scientific measure for the “too much suffering” line, how does one judge such things? can you ride a horse, at all? or can you for an hour a day but no more? or as much as you want? where’s the line? > > because, without animals, society would not be nearly as civilized as we are. it took domestication of livestock and beasts of burden in order to advance into the civilized age. > > vegans cannot, if you all represent their mentality, advocate riding or using a horse—so by extension, no westward expansion would have occurred in america. no real progress would have been made if we had left it up to vegans. > travel would have been greatly limited. > we would have never made the leap from hunter/gather to agriculture if we couldn’t use plow animals…the ones we bred into existence…for exactly that purpose. > > if you take away our dominance and utilization of and over fauna of the world, progress would be severely limited to a bygone era i can’t even imagine. literally Amish would be more advanced than a idealistic vegan society. > > if you want to say “that’s the way it had to be then–but it doesn’t have to be that way now,” then my rebuttal is: apparently, it does still have to be that way. otherwise it simply wouldn’t. > > this proposal of “animals as meat is obsolete” is premature. > when it’s obsolete, it’ll actually be…obsolete. we’ll have moved on, and that will be that. that day may never come–but it’s sure not here now. > > animals and man have a symbiotic relationship which has yielded amazing progress. quality of life is tremendously better because of animals. we have medicines and various health sciences because of lab work done on animals. > > you want to talk about limiting suffering? if you take away the ability to test medicines and treatments on animals, and extrapolate that backwards, what do you get…? a plagued society with diseases we could never otherwise control. > we would. be. doomed. sick. diseased. miserable. _dead_. > human suffering would know no limits. > > this artificial law of ethics you try to apply is just that–artificial. it’s a mechanism to feel less guilty about your impact on the world, which, if you need that–_more power to you_. but stop trying to apply it universally. that’s _religion_. and we all know that won’t work. > > a vegan’s utopia society would have never transcended the dark ages. so stop reaping the benefit of centuries of proper and fair animal usage/consumption and pretending like _now you transcend it_. you’re just being a goody-two shoes…one who doesn’t farm their own food, one who doesn’t eschew the progress animals have given you up to this point. This is a very good post. Give me a little time and I will respond to these. ---
**Author:** ![gamerunknown](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/6bbea6/32.png) [@gamerunknown](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gamerunknown)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2012, 2:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/eating-meat-is-ethical-unethical/617064/276 "2012-04-07T14:10:04Z")
> [@dontbesojumpy](#): > > gauging the “acceptable amount” of animal suffering is patently impossible, so any distinction a vegan makes is straight up bullshit. How about any distinction made about animal fighting rings, or abuse of animals, or laws prohibiting bestiality? I actually support repealing all of the legislation banning them. I’m not interested in committing any of those offences, nor do I own a pet, but I think that human pleasure should usually come before the rights of other animals, legally. > [@dontbesojumpy](#): > > a vegan’s utopia society would have never transcended the dark ages. Genetic fallacy. ---
**Author:** ![Trust](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b38774/32.png) [@Trust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trust)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2012, 2:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/eating-meat-is-ethical-unethical/617064/277 "2012-04-07T14:16:41Z")
> [@Dr.Colossus](#): > > oh well. then problem solved. i don’t punch, kick or kill animals. i try not to kill bugs or spiders if i can relocate them without destroying them. i rescued a dog and give it a wonderful, happy life. > > i don’t hunt. > > looky there. i’m ethical. and i still get to eat the daylights out of steak. but according to this new broad-stroke you’ve allowed, almost everyone is ethical to whatever degree we feel there’s a problem. > > almost everyone on the planet is, save for some heartless monsters. Let’s take a personal example since it is hard not to come across as judging on a forum. I eat cheese. At first I had no idea this was unethical, but now that I understand what happens, this is 100% unethical. If I increase the demand for cheese, I am directly responsible for causing suffering to them. I am unethical because I do this. I am doing many things to try to replace and prevent that suffering, but I am still being unethical. Until we find alternatives for this, I will always be unethical in that situation. I could care less about judging what you do. What I do care about is that we stop making up rationalizations and admit what it truly is. A huge source of injustice that needs to stop. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Colossus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.colossus/32/9423_2.png) [@Dr.Colossus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Colossus)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2012, 2:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/eating-meat-is-ethical-unethical/617064/278 "2012-04-07T14:26:09Z")
> [@gamerunknown](#): > > How about any distinction made about animal fighting rings, or abuse of animals, or laws prohibiting bestiality? I actually support repealing all of the legislation banning them. I’m not interested in committing any of those offences, nor do I own a pet, but I think that human pleasure should usually come before the rights of other animals, legally. i read that three times and i cannot figure out what your point is. to me, it reads like “what about these awful other things? i support laws against them, but i think we should have the right to do those things.” how can you both support laws against them and say you think human pleasure should trump animal rights…? i’m fairly certain what you just said doesn’t make any sense. > [@gamerunknown](#): > > Genetic fallacy. i’m fairly certain you are using that term wrong. you’re so caught up on fallacy phrases you’ve sacrificed your ability to _actually say anything_. if you are trying to get at the point “a vegan society wouldn’t necessarily be stuck in the dark ages,” you can posit that stance–but you as well cannot propose any means as to how they would have progressed beyond it. every technology and advancement you can potentially conceived in your imagination will have, at some point, owed its genesis to some kind of animal usage. if you can rebut what i’m saying with some alternatives and lay out the groundwork for society to have advanced without the use of animals, feel free. if you want to keep playing high school debate club, keep on keepin’ on–but at least brush up on your fallacies and use the correct ones. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Colossus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.colossus/32/9423_2.png) [@Dr.Colossus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Colossus)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2012, 2:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/eating-meat-is-ethical-unethical/617064/279 "2012-04-07T14:31:48Z")
> [@Trust](#): > > Let’s take a personal example since it is hard not to come across as judging on a forum. I eat cheese. At first I had no idea this was unethical, but now that I understand what happens, this is 100% unethical. If I increase the demand for cheese, I am directly responsible for causing suffering to them. I am unethical because I do this. I am doing many things to try to replace and prevent that suffering, but I am still being unethical. Until we find alternatives for this, I will always be unethical in that situation. I could care less about judging what you do. What I do care about is that we stop making up rationalizations and admit what it truly is. A huge source of injustice that needs to stop. but here’s where you are messing up: you are saying it’s intrinsically unethical. i have a friend who runs a farm. she makes her own cheese from a cow she’s named and calls her friend. in fact, all her animals are tended to as pets. i make fun of her because it’s a lot less of a farm than a petting zoo for a grown woman. she doesn’t partake in any of the unethical mass-production animal exploitation methods that you keep defining as unethical. she makes boutique cheeses for local eateries with the left over milk. she sells her eggs as true free-range/small farm bred to local restaurants as well. her goat _sleeps in bed with her_. i don’t think anyone here’s going to argue that the way we consume way, way too much meat in america and the production scale we’ve had to adapt is the best way. but to extrapolate that to “all meat is unethical, all animal products are unethical” is ludicrous. i think you need to adjust your argument to “eating meat CAN be unethical if you are doing it in an abusive way…but it’s not entirely, by it’s nature, wrong.” ---
**Author:** ![gamerunknown](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/6bbea6/32.png) [@gamerunknown](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gamerunknown)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2012, 2:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/eating-meat-is-ethical-unethical/617064/280 "2012-04-07T14:42:14Z")
> [@dontbesojumpy](#): > > how can you both support laws against them and say you think human pleasure should trump animal rights…? I said I’d support repealing legislation banning them. In other words, those actions would no longer be criminal. > [@dontbesojumpy](#): > > use the correct ones. P: Our ancestors ate meat in the past P: We are currently in a good position C: Eating meat is necessary for a good position No different from P: Our ancestors raped our other ancestors in the past P: We are currently in a good position C: Rape is necessary for a good position [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/eating-meat-is-ethical-unethical/617064.md?page=13) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/eating-meat-is-ethical-unethical/617064.md?page=15)