Good post. I’ll get some statistics when I have some time.
The line is not arbitrary at all. The golden rule applies to anything that is aware of the world. Inanimate objects are clearly not aware of the world. Plants clearly do not have brains or a central nervous system to experience pain. Likewise, bacteria do not have brains or complex central nervous systems to experience pain. Insects, however, do have brains and are aware of the world. Therefore, the golden rule starts with them. Obviously it recognizes that they most likely do not feel pain. Animals have brains and experience pain and exhibit the same sort of emotional stress and physical pain symptoms as us.
We currently have farm sanctuaries. There is no valid reason why they would go away if there was far fewer animals. If anything, the importance of them would become greater. No one is saying that we would keep all of the current animals. As demand slows, we would no longer artificially inseminate them to produce more. The few left would be at farm sanctuaries.
I am surprised you fall for this argument. We certainly need to be smart about what we eat, but to talk about micronutrients that are easily obtained, when we are dying from heart disease and cancer is intellectually dishonest. Since we live in the netflix age, I recommend watching ‘Forks over Knives’.
Why does there have to be reciprocity? Like I said, whether something is ethical or not has nothing to do with what you receive in return. Can you explain why we have to get something in return?
Interesting. Never heard that one.
My justification is that others, means just that… others.
The elementary golden rule says: Do to others what you would want done to yourself
The more advanced golden rule says:
*Do to others what you would want done to yourself if you were them *
Can you explain the logic behind including some “others” (humans) but excluding some “others” (animals) ?
It matters in so much as that I am logically consistent. If I said that animals and humans were the same, this would have logical inconsistencies such as the fact that humans clearly have higher intelligence. However, intelligence has nothing to do with whether someone should be killed.
You are taking the most advanced questions and wondering why utilitarianism is difficult. It would be like starting to learn science by trying to crack quantum mechanics. You need to start with actual, real life examples. Not some theoretical question that will never happen.
The original definer of Utilitarianism was Jeremy Bentham and he was an animal rights advocate so I am not sure where you are seeing that it was originally human to human. In my post #81 I show why these people who lived in the 1700’s were so far ahead of their times. They applied simple ethical theories.
If I started with elementary Utilitarianism, then yes, there would be a possibility that our benefit would be greater than the animals since we would be ignoring free will, justice, etc. However, I start with the golden rule and it violates that right off the bat.
You think the only reason slavery was wrong is because we all of a sudden found out they were humans by their DNA? Wow… The reason it was wrong was because of the clear suffering. It is not like we needed a DNA test to prove that. We know the animals suffer. There is not much more you need to know. We should at the very least be trying to prevent that suffering.
Pasture land that otherwise “are completely useless”? Not much that used to be forest, or prairie with grasses that trapped carbon in very deep root systems, or could also be used for crops?
If I were an animal, I don’t know how I would know what I want. I don’t know how animals think and feel. What you’re asking me to do is anthropomorphize animals. Clearly, when they do that, animals will desire human things. Do you really think this is a sound way to understand ethics regarding animals?
Yes. I can understand other humans because I am a human. I cannot usually understand animals because I am not an animal. I do not tell other humans what they think; I ask them what they think. I do not tell animals what to think, and I cannot ask them what they think.
I agree that intelligence is not the best basis for justifying killing.
I don’t wonder why utilitarianism is difficult. It is plain to see why utilitarianism is difficult. It supposes measures we don’t have. Even if we bypass human-to-human problems of understanding wants and needs, extending utilitarian analysis to animals assumes things for which the human measures would not apply unless you viewed animals as moral equals to humans. I do not know how anyone justifies this.
The concepts you mention are not the sole province of utilitarians and those concepts motivate things like democracy, not animal rights.
Again, concepts we apply to humans, because we can hash out, human to human, and come to social agreements, which is the province of ethics. Pointedly, animals have never been invited to such discussions. Therefore you need some way to bring their wants and needs into the fray. So far, all you’ve offered me is Walt Disney anthropomorphizing. I am not particularly swayed by imagining myself as a cat. It is an interesting way to start to consider the question, but I don’t think it can stand as a justification.
That is not what I said.
There is, because I don’t know how I am supposed to weigh the suffering of an animal with the suffering of a human, a point I have been repeatedly asking you and which you repeatedly fail to establish.
I already provided a cite that showed the historical ruminant population was estimated to only have 30% less greenhouse gas emissions compared to the current cattle industry.
So unless you have some evidence that it would revert back to some super pre-Colombian state your request is pure speculation.
The fact that you infer that farmers would grow alfalfa which is one of the lowest value crops by choice is dismissive of the hard working and smart women/men who feed us all.
Here is a link to show you what the economic realities are on marginal land, high producing land may be run as pasture as a part of rotation but it would be economically silly to run it as perm pasture.
I am also still not convinced that pure farming would be a good thing, many crops could not be grown organically without manure but to be fair you haven’t stated an objection to chemical fertilizers.
I have no idea what your post has to do with my request.
Yes, historic ruminants running wild over all the land produced 30% less GHG than the modern beef industry does. (Of course ignoring the carbon capture of the environment which supported them as opposed to the fossil fuel reliant GHG costs of the meat industry infrastructure.) And that informs on any of this how?
Would land that is currently used for grazing and producing feed for the meat industry be repurposed if it was not used for those purposes? Or is it all only good for “growing grass”? Would those repurposes produce food (even poultry) or have other positive impacts that might decrease climate change risks?
Your last cite in fact provides evidence that even grazing that is done on very marginal land is potentially usable for row crops, let alone for various grasses that might have a biomass for energy market in the future. You seem to think that if those lands were not used for the support of the meat industry they would be left to become wild prairies “back-filled” with herds of bison and elk. That seems like an odd expectation to me.
Not where alfalfa comes from, where you got alfalfa from in this discussion.
About the use of marginal land for biomass. Now recent rulings about new coal plants that do not adequately encourage biomass co-firing may discourage it for now, but longer term, as NG prices go back up, it may be something that is returned to.
vegans are cute. go to africa, explain the morality of “food” to them and explain they have to limit their already severely limited diet. because of ethics.
i like this “we have this luxury so let’s pretend we’re higher-minded” attitude.
what about all the THOUSANDS of critters that die in even organic vegetable farms? uncountable amounts of voles, mice, rabbits, etc are thrashed in combines and harvesters. pesticides (of the harsh chemical or natural variety) kill hundreds of thousands of bugs and small animals. coyotes/deer and other ‘vermin’ are culled. i never hear vegans talk about this…but counting basic living organisms, a great multitude die directly or indirectly in vegetable agriculture. seems to me humans: have to conquer, to whatever degree, nature. and things gotta die. playing this “one way is more ethical than the next” game is kind of arbitrary to me…
none of this is to mention our biological omnivorous attributes or the fact meat IS food.
There are quite a few posts that argue that we can invent ethical rules out of thin air because it’s the same way we invented rules against murder and rape. I have to disagree.
As humans we are the superior species on this planet and we excel in many things. But one thing we can’t do: Surviving alone.
To survive as a species we have to cooperate with others. For example: Because we have a very long childhood we need someone who tends to the kids while some one else is getting the food. At first the groups were small, maybe just one family living in a cave - but with the development of more complex needs the groups had to become bigger to fulfill this needs. And there where always rules against murder between the cooperating individuals, because no one would want to be part of a group if he has to live in constant fear of being killed by the guy next to him. Therefore we evolved into social beings. But there was no big need for rules against killing outside the cooperating group. They were competing for the same resources. They were the enemy. Which explains why our history is full of wars and bloodshed. It may be good to remember that the times of political and social Darwinism are not so long gone (if at all).
Today we have to cooperate with thousands of other individuals just to fulfill a pretty basic and obviously beneficial need like an appendectomy. Think of all the miners, steelworkers, engineers, nurses, doctors and all the others in between. Think of all the stuff in your home. How many does it take to build all that? We have to cooperate and we need a rule against murder to do so.
Rules against rape where also good for the group. Because raising a child is an expensive endeavor, potential fathers want to know that they really are the father. And potential mothers want to choose the best father for their children. And even the child has an interest in not being conceived during a rape. If it is raised by loving parents in a stable household it has a better chance to succeed later in live. (And the duck-rape-article linked in an earlier post shows that nature/evolution is not the biggest fan of rapists.) But the rule against rape was also only valid within the group – giving slave-owners and victorious soldiers ample opportunity to rape the “others”.
The rules against murder and rape where not pulled out of thin air. They are enforced because they are good for us. For mankind as a species.
Can we say the same about a rule not to eat meat? You can try to make a case that eating meat is bad for your health and that the production of meat is a waste of resources. But in my opinion both arguments fall short. The big health risk is obesity not the poisonous effects of flesh. Sure, it is easier to over eat with meat and animal fat than with fruits and vegetables but eat enough 100% vegan french fries and you will risk the same heart attack. On the other hand not eating any meat is also unhealthy and especially to little kids outright dangerous. And the OP argues that we shouldn’t eat any flesh at all. As for wasting resources: Maybe we do, maybe we don’t. Let’s eat only half the amount of meat. We should be golden. But again, that is not what the OP want’s us to do. He explicitly want’s us to forgo all consumption of meat.
But should we base or ethics only on what is god for mankind? Good god! No! But the OP tries to sell his ethics as some kind of universal truth. And if it comes to that, a rule that benefits mankind always trumps one that doesn’t.
Will future generations look back and think of us as unethical monsters that enslave, torture and kill animals for no good reason? Probably. But not because they are somehow enlighten and have seen the error of our ways. They will be able to synthesize meat that is superior to the best natural beef we have and they will forget that we were not able to do the same. We shouldn’t be concerned about that. Later generations never really grok there ancestors. That’s the way things go.
PS: There should be a lot more phrases like “seems to me” and “in my opinion” in this post. But to keep it at least somewhat readable I followed the good old tradition of presenting my opinions as facts. And I hope my English is not that bad that “my meaning [got] lost or misconstrued”.
“Mr. McClure? I have a crazy friend who says its wrong to eat meat. Is he crazy?”
“No Jimmy. Just ignorant!”
Clearly the OP has never heard of the “food chain”. Don’t kid yourself Trust. If a cow ever got the chance, he’d eat you and everyone you care about!
There really is no argument against eating pigs, cows and chickens that isn’t absurd. If your survival depended on having to catch and kill a chicken for food in the wild, only a lunatic would argue that it was “unethical” to do so. And said lunatic would likely soon starve to death anyway. The fact that modern society largely allows us to separate our work tasks so that most of us aren’t directly involved in food production doesn’t mean that we don’t still have those same dietary requirements.
This is what we like to call a “rich country problem”.
Likewise, this is a fantasy. Humans may have been hunters before they were agricultural, but with the advent of agriculture it has always been more efficient to produce crops than to domesticate animals just because of energy loss in trophic levels. Edit: In fact, our current diets are far more harmful to the third world than alternatives. They contribute more to climate change and the raising of meat requires far more crop space than if we had just raised crops to eat (comparing average vegetarian diet and average meat diet).
Why? Could mankind be defined as much smaller than it currently is, but less volatile?
Cite?
Not necessarily. Obesity is commoner in meat eaters than vegetarians it seems. Other negative health effects of vegetarianism do not seem to outweight that benefit to lifespan. Side note, I’ve read Wigan Pier and found it hilarious.
These are all tu quoque and they conflate comission with omission.
I’m asking why we should accept the naturalistic fallacy in the case of eating meat and not rape.
This is special pleading. Why shouldn’t we apply ethical principles to other species?
Agreed that ethics all ultimately rest on what is good for the group over time.
But not eating meat dangerous for kids? Nope. Pretty easy to get a balanced diet for a growing child as a lacto-ovo-vegetarian, and even vegans can do okay if they make an effort.
Yup, agreed, no need to be rigid. If humans as a species decreased meat consumption rather than increasing it dramatically we’d be golden. No need even to halve it, just decrease overall. Unfortunately what is happening in the world is that the huge populations of China and India are now moving from being low meat consumption to higher meat consumption. Just like they drive more cars now and otherwise are moving towards the West’s consumption habits. In neither case as much per capita as we do, but there’s so many of them that even moving some towards the West’s mean will have huge impacts.
Which is why this
is a bit laughable. The impact on the health of the planet is significant. As the previous poster argues, ethics derive from the interests of the greater good of the group overall. The world’s increased meat consumption imperils all of us. The biggest meat consumption per capita is in the West but the biggest increases are occurring in India and China. The poorer countries are not worried about the ethics of meat, they are worried about getting enough food and generally that means protein from plant sources as a matter of affordability (and they are often not able to afford that right now) … they are often obligate low meat consumers. But the inability of the world to produce enough affordable food to feed those in poor countries, the greatest adverse impacts of climate change that higher meat consumption contributes to, those costs will be disproportionately born by those in poorer countries. A “rich country problem” … hardly.
“It can’t” because the situation is impossible or because you would likely never be in it?
The question remains, is there something inherently more or less ethical in killing an animal because survival necessesitates it, versus I just want it killed because I like steak?
You have not convinced me that this is a “meat” problem as opposed to a greater “food” problem.
Actual data is always fun. The average per capita meat consumption is 46.6 kg per person per year worldwide. In the United States we are at 122.79, not the world leader actually, Luxembourg beats us at 136.73, but a close number 2, and just a bit under 3X more than the global average. More than twice as much as in China (which doubled between 1990 and 2002) or Russia and even 25% more than in Canada or Israel. Almost 50% more than in France, Germany or the UK.
So yeah, maybe we, as a society, could cut back some? Ethically it is hard to justify being such an outlier for something with global impacts that will be borne most by those who consume meat the least. Yeah, I’m talking to you Luxembourg!
On preview: msmith537, the cites have already been provided that showed how much more inputs and harmful outputs are required to produce a unit of animal protein compared to a unit of plant protein (with the exceptions of poultry and some sustainable fish sources). The same inputs (land, water, energy, etc.) would produce much more protein and overall nutrition if used for other than meat food production and the outputs of meat production will further harm the poorest countries ability to produce enough to feed themselves over time by contributing to climate change.
As to not all agreeing with what I agreed with. Okay. Really a separate debate.
Oh if you are a climate change denier then never mind. That bit of information would inform me that further discussion would be pointless. This ethical argument is addressed to those of us who choose to drive more efficient vehicles but still drive, who use electricity but try to conserve in reasonable ways, in short who feel that we do not need to be extreme in order to do something and feel that our little bits are the ethically right thing to do even if individually they do not matter all that much and that ethics do not require extreme behaviors, but at least requires we not be the biggest pigs around.
From this POV eating less meat is very much akin to not choosing an SUV when a smaller car meets our needs.
Indeed; when people make claims that meat causes disease (I myself eat meat regularly yet am not overweight much less obese, nor has anybody in my family, who eat similarly, back to at least my grandparents, had a heart attack), they don’t seem to realize that it is processed junk food that causes disease, whether it is vegan or not (soda anyone?), as this study makes clear:
(processed meat has ingredients like nitrites in it, which includes hot dogs, salami, lunch meat, sausage, etc; a big juicy hamburger on the other hand doesn’t (shouldn’t) have any - although of course they are often oversized; nitrites are also linked to cancer, made most clear by a dramatic decline in gastric cancer in the 1920s when nitrites were reduced).
(read the last as heart disease, cancer, diabetes, obesity, etc)
As for environmental/food production concerns, having animals be raised on natural foods (such as grass) would reduce or eliminate the need to grow crops just to feed them; although grass-fed cows produce significantly more methane than grain-fed cows (yes, you read that right), but crops need substantial fossil fuel inputs, which are the real culprit in climate change since emissions are cumulative (you know, that old saw about breathing causing global warming; yes, methane is a stronger GHG but CO2 levels are rising much faster, and recent methane increases are largely from the Arctic, previously they were nearly stable). Also, IMO, corn ethanol is a much bigger problem because it wastes resources for non-food uses and will soon take up half of the entire U.S. corn crop (although the trend may slow with the expiration of tax credits).