I did, and your response was to escalate.
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.
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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
You objected to my definition of vegetarianism as being a way to reduce the suffering of animals by definition. I agreed that my post was a mischaracterisation and clarified my meaning. I’ll reiterate:
Equivocating between omnivorism and vegetarianism as methods of reducing animal suffering is not based in reality. There are a few omnivores that do not contribute to animal suffering - those that eat carrion, for instance. Vegetarian diets in practice in industrialised countries probably tend to reduce animal suffering, since they require fewer pounds of crops, but a commitment to a vegetarian diet does not by definition indicate the practitioner seeks to avoid animal suffering.
I don’t find the argument that vegetarian diets actually increase the suffering of animals convincing and I provided reasons above.
If you have a problem with my use of the term “tu quoque” in relation to accusations of hypocrisy, most of the arguments also fall into the two wrongs fallacy (eating meat can’t be unethical because animals will suffer whether we do it or not) or equivocation (omnivores and vegetarians both contribute to animal suffering).
Much better. Keep it up.
And being a passionate animal lover myself, my problem is with simply assuming that killing is bad, period, without drawing any distinctions between methods of killing.
If animals are given decent lives and quick clean deaths, I just don’t see the problem, and all the explanations of why death is inherently bad that I get boil down to projecting one’s own human POV and experience on to animals: they “want” to live long lives, they don’t “want” to die, when the kinds of animals we eat for food are not sufficiently developed in their brains to even be aware of themselves as individuals, so assuming they have the mental wherewithal to be wanting to live or fearing to die isn’t reasonable.
Keep them comfortable and clueless and all is well.
[QUOTE=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.
[/QUOTE]
It’s a fairly long and definitely contentious thread, but I believe most of the points you raised have been addressed, though there is little consensus between the various sides involved in the debate that the underlying issues have been addressed.
Definitely. As animals get closer and closer to humans, either on the cuteness scale or wrt intelligence, increasing numbers of folks get uncomfortable with causing unnecessary harm and suffering. Someone who would not bat an eye at squashing a cockroach, say, would feel pretty bad about doing the same thing to a kitten or puppy.
I could be wrong here, but I don’t believe anyone has made the ‘plant comparison’. The argument that’s been put forth thus far in this thread is simply that raising crops in a modern, industrialized agricultural society also causes a large amount of harm, death and suffering to animals. Also, the logistics infrastructure that brings and processes that produce also causes harm. It’s simply unavoidable in a modern society. So, that gets into what constitutes a ‘luxury’ item? It’s been asserted that eating meat is a ‘luxury’ that causes harm to animals. No doubt it DOES cause harm to animals. However, anything you, I or any other member of our technological society does causes harm, pain and suffering to animals. All of the goods and services that you, I and everyone else using this board causes a large, non-zero harm and suffering level to some animal somewhere. Most of the things we do day to day aren’t necessary for our basic survival, thus most of them would ALSO constitute a ‘luxury’. So, why focus on the consumption of meat, then?
And I would argue that eating animals that have been bred and raised to be our food for centuries or millennium DOES constitute a ‘good reason’ to do so. We are omnivorous, so eating meat IS part of our makeup. Certainly we have a choice, and either choice is ‘ethical’ from the basic physiology of our makeup. Yeah, you can get everything you need from a purely vegan diet…as long as you are careful in your diet and ensure you are getting all the nutrients you need and supplementing properly. Thousands, possibly millions of people do this every day. But having animal protean in your diet makes things easier, since you don’t have to give it as much thought…it’s what we were designed for, after all.
And, again, if you live in a modern technological society, then you are ALREADY going to be doing harm to animals by the use of every product and service you use. So, why harp on meat eating? At least from the perspective of trying to take so fictional high moral ground, it’s ridiculous. Now, from the perspective of health, or personal belief, or even environmental impact…yeah, I can see all of that, and while I’m not going to become a vegan, I can respect someone who takes that position. As long as they aren’t attempting to justify THEIR decision in terms of moral or ethical superiority, that is…and as long as they aren’t trying to tell me what I should be doing if I want to be moral or ethical. That’s where things start to go off the rails.
I agree, it’s a continuous spectrum, and everyone is going to set where their gray areas and their black and white areas exist on that continuum. Myself, I set the gray area on wild mammals who haven’t been bred for food and are have natural predators who can keep their populations in check (so, for example, I don’t have a large issue about hunting deer or wild boar in the US, since we DON’T have large predators that keep them in check, having killed most of them or driven them into isolated parts of the country). I’m uncomfortable with people who hunt wild game that doesn’t meet that standard, so it’s a gray area. It’s cut and dried to me, so to speak, when it comes to animals that humans have specifically bred to be food, and who’s populations are maintained solely because they ARE our food, such as cows, pigs, chickens, etc. Most of those species depend completely on human care and resources, many being completely unable, at this point, to have any sort of wild existence, having been crafted to be wholly dependent on us. I don’t see any moral or ethical issue in eating these species at all, though as others have said in the thread, I would want their lives to be as good and healthy as possible, and their deaths to be quick and painless to them, with a minimum of suffering.
I would disagree, as stated, for the reasons I’ve given. Animal species that have been bred to be our food would not exist without our continued need to use them as our food, so I don’t see non-existence as doing those species or the members of those species a favor by not continuing to breed them, feed them, care for them, and then eat them. Same goes for wild species that we humans have removed all of the top tier predators from that would otherwise keep them in check. Other species are a gray area for me, or completely black…such as close, companion species such as dogs, cats, etc. While I am not going to make a moral or ethical issue out of folks who disagree with me (lots of cultures and peoples eat dog and cat, or monkey, for instance), I maintain my disagreement with them over these species.
It would be nice and respectful, to me, if folks like the OP could put this debate in terms of disagreement, and not attempt to take some sort of moral or ethical high ground over it, and drop the air of superiority thingy going on here.
-XT
Just because I have to: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armin_Meiwes
Let’s use your analogy of distance. If someone is standing a football field away from me and another person is standing right next to me, it is not very important that I start measuring the number of inches between every person to find out who is farther away. It is quite clear that the person who is a football field away from me is farther away.
Still using this analogy, your argument relies on the fact that if I don’t actually measure the distance and put it into units, then you have no idea which person is farther away. In other words, if I don’t put it into units of measure, then you can ignore the question in the first place.
In the actual example of animals… On average, the amount of pain experienced by the animals compared to the amount of pleasure we get from eating them is a difference in orders of magnitude. No one who goes to YouTube and watches the animals in factory farms is going to claim after watching it that they were “close”. The only reason it occurs is because we deny them equal consideration of interests. Usually by trying to put our blinders on and ignore it in the first place.
To be able to prove the obvious here, we will need to involve Dolorimetry: The measurement of the pain response in animals and humans. Any Straight Dopers aware of good scientific studies?
Now, let’s talk about the exception animals who are treated “well”. Like I have said, if animals actually lived out natural lives and were killed painlessly, I would have never even thought for a second to give up meat. This is unfortunate because I would have never even thought to take their lives into consideration. We do know that even in the best conditions, animals are usually still mutilated. This would also include skipping McDonald’s, Wendy’s, KFC, etc. You would basically be limited to farmers markets or Whole Foods. Whole Foods has a Five Step system depending on how the animals were treated. Although I don’t eat meat, I like to stop by the meat counter and check up on the availability. I have yet to see Step 5+ meat available and most of the numbers are lower but even the first step is better than factory farms (not saying much).
In the short run, these animal welfare items are a good thing because it causes less suffering to the animals. In the long run, this has the potential to be a devastating thing because it makes the consumer feel good about violating the golden rule. It is hard to argue for the continued exploitation of animals. Any future civilization that has the ability to end exploitation is going to and when they look back at us, it won’t be with admiration.
If you look back at history, you will find that the exact same process happened. First slaves were regarded as nothing and not taken into consideration at all. Then they were regarded as having a capacity to suffer and welfare steps were enacted. Then people started seeing past the system of exploitation to begin with and calling for the gradual abolition of slavery. Finally, people started demanding the immediate abolition of slavery. Of course many years went by, many technologies were developed that replaced slaves, and many hearts were changed once they realized they failed to take their lives into consideration. Did a lot of this have to do with no longer needing the slaves as much? Sure. But the people who saw past the entire system and had their hearts changed were the ones who actually helped enact the necessary changes to abolish the system.
So I reject your argument that it is acceptable to exploit others for our own good. If you want to cause less suffering to the animals in the mean time by following animal welfare systems, then good for you and I will applaud that. I would fully encourage it assuming you understand it is only one step forward of the giant leap that is necessary.
Hi JasperST. Arguments by nature are fallacious. Berries can be good or bad. Some will nourish you. Others will kill you.
Your second argument seems to be an argument from non-existance. If a couple decides to use birth control and wait until they can give the children a better life, would you argue that it was immoral?
Here is the best rebuttal to my own argument I could come up with that does not resort to rationalizations:
http://www.ted.com/talks/graham_hill_weekday_vegetarian.html
Although it ignores my golden rule argument and sticks to the Utilitarian side.
Not that this comes as a shock to anyone who understand the current system, but here is an article that posted today
Arsenic and Other Chemicals Found in Chicken:
To an extent, they did. However, it is a disagreement about (what they feel is a) moral issue. It is apparent that moral issues in themselves are contentious and vegetarianism is no exception: in fact, the various individuals contributing may not even have overlapping premises and may not even accept the notion that this is a moral question at all. I don’t think that necessitates that we cannot discuss reasonably or that we will have to resort to ad hominem attacks.
From my perspective, I’ve never tried to convince anyone of the morality of vegetarianism apart from during an English assignment where we were required to debate a topic in secondary school.
Remember, from the sources given in this thread, it is a necessity monitor one’s diet whether one is an omnivore or vegetarian.
Has anyone participating in this thread recently stated that they are ok with factory farms? I know I’ve been direct in my agreement that current factory farming methods are inhumane and must be changed. So lets do that.
Meet the Thompson family and appreciate their hog farm.
No one is violating the golden rule by eating animals, because most people do not define “others” as “all living things”. You do, so you won’t feel good about eating meat, but that’s you, and your private ethical standards and practices are yours, not the standard by which everyone’s are measured (except by you, of course…). And your definition of the Golden Rule is not THE definition of the Golden Rule. So you might want to stop conflating Trust’s Personal Revised and Expanded Golden Rule with THE Golden Rule, since they are significantly different.
Slaves are human beings. Cows are not human beings.
Slaves are human beings. Chickens are not human beings.
Slaves are human beings. Sheep are not human beings.
Slaves are human beings. Pigs are not human beings.
Because slaves are human beings. Food animals are not human beings.
You have utterly failed to make a case for why it is necessary to stop eating meat, particularly if we succeed in reforming meat-raising practices. You just keep saying in slightly different ways, that we should all agree with you. Your very minor attempts to justify your belief have boiled down to projecting your human perspective on to animals, which isn’t useful, realistic, or meaningful.
So do you think meat eating is unethical, or are you just looking for ways to convince people to become vegetarian so you won’t feel isolated, or what?
You are hopeless.
- I have not made an argument with respect to eating meat. I am merely asking you to actually make a coherent argument. I am asking for clarification on problems I see with your argument.
- Yes, units are important. That’s why I’ve asked you to specify both what we measure and how we measure it. “How do I compare animals to humans?” I’ve asked it repeatedly. I’ve bolded it. I have no other options left to emphasize that this is my question and you continue to refuse to answer it.
- I agree you have no idea, because I’ve asked so many god damn times and gotten nothing on the matter apart from repeated accusations that I hold positions I do not in fact hold and in some cases have explicitly denied by agreeing with you.
In fact I am ignoring it because you have not put forth a coherent position at all until you meet this burden.
That’s right. If the animals popped wholly into existence, fully formed, and then were brutally killed in PETA-style selective videos, I would agree that factory farming is totally abhorrent. (Except actually I fucking hate birds and don’t care at all what happens to them. But pigs and cows and stuff are kind of cute.)
Because humans and animals aren’t equal, a point I have repeated many times and which you continue to agree with, thus necessitating the comparison be fleshed out.
Animals that live naturally, like humans that live naturally, rarely die painlessly. So your basis for comparison is already a wild fantasy.
Often by other animals or disease which humans actually prevent.
Again: your modified golden rule, which expects us to treat animals with the respect we reserve for humans, even though you admit animals and humans aren’t comparable… except when you want it to be to bolster your argument, which by this point I hope everyone can see is horrible, even if they’d like to sympathize with it.
I think it is hard for you to argue for anything.
Here we go again with this nice little story. Since you agree animals are not equal to humans this story has no argumentative force and is merely here as an emotional tug. Having been tugged that way enough in my few decades on this mudball, it has lost its force and I require a bit more than that.
Which argument is that? The one you keep attributing to me so that you can knock it down instead of making a case for yourself? Oh. Yeah.
It was the second post in this thread. I’m sure there are others.
I agree that loss of habitat and whatnot causes harm to animals. But there is a difference between causing an animal population to dwindle when we take away part of their habitat, and deliberately killing the animals.
This argument boils down to “we’ve always done it, so why not keep on doing it.” I don’t view this as a valid argument.
Because there’s really no justification for it, besides the fact that “it tastes good”.
[QUOTE=gamerunknown]
To an extent, they did.
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No, they didn’t. The title of the OP itself is all about portraying this as an Ethical/Unethical debate, which pretty much automatically takes it out of the realm of disagreement and into a good vs bad portrayal. So, to no extent have ‘they’ attempted to instead debate this issue on grounds of simple disagreement, or individual/self belief and world view. Because, if they HAD done that then I’d guess most people in this thread would agree…it’s a personal CHOICE, that individuals CHOOSE based on their own, individual world view. Want to eat meat? Fine…that’s your choice. Want to be a vegan? Fine…that’s your choice. Neither has a moral or ethical high ground, both are completely natural for the human animal, a sentient being able to make choices and choose paths, to make.
Exactly…which brings about connotations of right vs wrong, good vs evil, The American Way™ vs, um…the Non-American Way. Or something. It’s an attempt to gain the moral high ground for what amounts to a personal choice by portraying this as a moral issue.
And the attempt to debate this issue as a moral, ethical one IS an attempt at a preemptive argumentum ad hominem (since you are seemingly fixated on your 1st year philosophy logical fallacy thingies). There is not ‘resort to ad hominem attacks’, instead it’s an all out ‘launch the missiles first and take the high ground!’.
Except, you know, it’s not. Literally hundreds of millions (hell, billions) of people who eat meat and other animal products (such as dairy) don’t bother with careful monitoring of their diet. Most Americans would look at you funny if you told them they had to carefully monitor their diet. Sure, if you have a chronic condition you might need to watch your carbs, or maybe your sodium intake, but mainly that comes about in middle age or latter…after you’ve already, um, bred. A real, full on all vegan diet, however, requires more care than simply eating whatever you like as long as it has no animal products in it at all. It requires discipline and monitoring and more thought than simply figuring out whether you want cheese with your double quarter pounder, and large, extra large or bucket sized fries with your trough sized diet coke. I don’t monitor my diet and never have. That might cut a few years off my life (though my grandmother ate a diet of refried beans cooked in lard, tortillas cooked in lard, lard cooked in lard, etc etc etc…and lived to be 96, so who knows? She also never monitored her diet, and would think it absurd to even consider such a thing), but I’ve already had my children, so from an evolutionary perspective I’m good to go. On what is pretty much a standards meat and dairy (with perhaps a veg now and then thrown in more for taste than for health) ‘American’ diet.
-XT
[QUOTE=Arnold Winkelried]
It was the second post in this thread. I’m sure there are others.
[/QUOTE]
I must have missed it then.
The very act of growing and cultivating crops causes animals harm. If you think about it for a minute you’ll see why. And not due to habitat loss alone. When you look out over a field, think about what lives under those fields…then think about the machines that turn the soil, the machines that move between the crops, the pesticides and herbicides and even the fertilizers being used, and then the machines that harvest the crops over that ground afterward. And the myriad other processes that have to take place in a modern, industrialized agricultural society to plant, grow, cultivate and distribute those crops.
Then think about how the raw materials to make all those machines were gathered, the manufacturing of those machines, then of all that it takes to get the produce from the fields to your table. I don’t see the difference between animals killed accidentally to do all those things and those killed deliberately to feed us. It’s all the same to the animals that die.
Why? We are omnivorous. We are designed to eat meat and veg. Why is this not a valid argument or justification for continuing to eat meat? Seems valid enough to me.
Why is ‘it tastes good’ not a justification? That soda you had for lunch probably ‘tastes good’, and that was all it took to justify drinking it…and yet, that soda is less necessary to your life and nutritional balance than a piece of steak or chicken. It really IS just empty calories. And it represents a non-zero number of animal deaths in the gathering of the raw materials, the processing and manufacturing, the marketing and distribution and the storage of the product before you ever got to order it for lunch. Animals died for you to enjoy that soda. And for you to use that computer you are using to type your responses to this thread. And for every single thing you did today in a technological society. What’s your justification for all of that? How does your justifications for those things trump a justification to eat meat because ‘it tastes good’? Especially since the meat actually DOES have nutritional value that your body needs, assuming you aren’t following a strict vegan diet and supplementing properly.
But even leaving all that aside, why does ‘it tastes good’ or ‘it feels good’ or ‘I enjoy it’ NOT rise to the level of a proper justification, in your mind? What about those things automatically means they aren’t justified?
-XT
If there is a way to grow those crops without harming those animals, it would ethically be better to grow the crops in that fashion. In any case, most people view harming an animal “by omission” (or as a side effect of what I do) as being less blameable than harming the animal directly. Example: there are dogs that will die if I don’t go adopt them at the pound. So would it be equivalent for me to go get one of those dogs, take it home and shoot it?
It seems to me that you are approaching it from the point of view that animal suffering is unimportant, and we don’t need to avoid it. Or am I misunderstanding you? If so, then you are in the minority view. Or do you agree that we should avoid making animals suffer without good reason? Should one need a justification to harm or kill an animal?
[QUOTE=Arnold Winkelried]
If there is a way to grow those crops without harming those animals, it would ethically be better to grow the crops in that fashion.
[/QUOTE]
But there isn’t. Nor is there a way to have a modern, technological society such as we have without harming those animals. Nor, if we as a society decided to forgo eating any meat or using any animal products, would we be able to do so without harming animals, even leaving aside all the animal species that we use for food having huge, dramatic drops in population. It’s part and parcel of a technological society and our large population levels.
I don’t see the equivalency, to be honest. You aren’t harming animals ‘by omission’ due to the cultivation of crops or the support of a technological society, you are merely removing your awareness of the harm you are doing by ignoring it. It’s not the same as your analogy there. 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’.
No, I’m not saying that animal suffering is unimportant. It’s important in so far as humans BELIEVE it’s important, on a sliding scale of importance. Harm of a cockroach would rate pretty low on most peoples scale. Harm of a puppy would rate fairly high on most peoples scale. Harm of a cow or pig rates less on most peoples scale. Harm of a human child would rate much, much higher than any of the above.
And I’ve already said that I’m fully on board with minimizing suffering in animals that we use for our food…or for anything else for that matter. 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’m all for killing such animals humanely, and for treating them humanely during their lives, but not that my desire for meat is somehow morally or ethically trumped simply because I desire it, as if the mere desire is automatically negates justification. To me, it doesn’t.
I don’t know where that puts me in the majority/minority of opinion on all this…I don’t generally concern myself with that, since I’m generally in the minority, opinion wise, on most subjects.
-XT
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. This may be a function of avoiding processed meat, as another poster pointed out. In order to have a healthy omnivorous diet, one has to carefully monitor one’s diet or risk death. In order to have a healthy vegetarian diet, one has to carefully monitor one’s diet or risk death.