Well what kind of animal are you talking about? Frankenchickens or the organic kind? Because a grossly modified chicken has to be killed quickly as the legs can’t support its weight, whereas a different chicken pay provide eggs for years before being sent to the block.
Why is that the case? I can’t speak for the OP, whose question seems perhaps a little half-baked (or maybe half-grilled?). But the only assumption I see necessary to make sense of his position is that — all else equal, and to achieve similar purposes — the fewer lives taken the better. This is supposedly an ethical constraint on our own actions; it does not necessarily imply that we have an obligation to thwart conscienceless beings from taking lives in pursuit of their own flourishing. In fact, it doesn’t even necessarily imply that I would have an obligation to stop another human from taking lives unnecessarily.
In other words: it may be better for me to eat part of a cow than all of a fish, if given the choice. This says nothing about having to stop cats from killing mice (or gazelles).
[For what it’s worth, I’m a vegetarian for emotional reasons. But I freely admit that human flourishing is rendered much easier through the eating of meat, and thus I cannot conclude that doing so is unethical, on pain of having to admit that following one’s nature is wrong.]
You answered your own question. If that’s not the OP’s premise, then what difference does it make whether we kill 1 whale or a billion cockroaches for supper? If it is the OP’s premise, then why should we limit our selves to saving a million cockroaches, the goal should be to stop all species killing. Otherwise the premise makes no sense.
ETA: Otherwise, me killing one neighbor would be better than me killing 5 of my neigbors.
Only on the Dope can the phrase “a billion cockroaches” show up in a food/eating thread.
** barfy smiley **
Ted Bundy killed at least 37 people
John Wayne Gacy killed 33 people
Jeffrey Dahmer killed 17 people
John Wilkes Booth killed one person
Of these murderers, John Wilkes Booth is the most ethical right? If murder is ethically wrong, he’s killed the least number of people in that list. So John Wilkes Booth is the most ethical, and Ted Bundy the least ethical.
The point? If you’ve decided eating animals is ethically wrong, none of your choices can be considered ethical as the very act is unethical. The same way that John Wilkes Booth can’t be considered ethical, as the act of murder is unethical in itself, and you don’t become more ethical the less people you murder unless that number is 0.
With respect, that isn’t true at all. The question at hand involves the rightness or wrongness of our own behavior, qua ethical actors, not necessarily the behavior of any other kind of being. “Is it wrong for me to kill a thousand carp when killing a single whale would do?” is not the same question as “Should I endeavor to reduce the number of lives taken by any other entity?”, although they may of course be related.
I suspect that you’re confusing the nature of moral obligation with the consequences that may inform such obligations. It simply isn’t the case that having an obligation to behave in a certain way means that I must correct any and all occurrences in which someone fails to meet that obligation. It certainly isn’t the case that I must stop definitionally non-ethical beings from going about their business.
In short: it may or may not be better for me, an ethically conscious human being, to take fewer lives when I can. This does not create the obligation that I must act like Schindler, questioning how many lives I could’ve saved by selling my watch.
It may or may not be — I’d rather you kill one than five, if those were my only choices — but that doesn’t address the issue. At all.
When you are considering this, do you take into account reproduction rates? In general, the smaller the animal, the faster they can reproduce. How long does it take to replace a full-grown whale?
What the hell does ethics have to do with meat?
Kill the hog. Eat said pork.
Just think of all the poor bacteria dying when you eat live yoghurt or innocent fungi in blue cheese…
Every mouthful is essentially genocide.
I don’t consider it ethical to eat food in such a way as that more will be available for others… in fact the exact opposite: I consider it unethical. I am aware of the opposite views on this subject.
But the more food there is, the bigger the population of the world is going to get. But we are already far, far too big. There isn’t enough organic, raw, fresh food to go around. So we have to make do with crappy processed and factory food.
Grains are extremely effective for producing large amounts of food a very little cost. But they are not what humans are designed to eat, they are what causes diabetes, obesity, and tons of other ailments. It’s by migrating to a grain-based diet that caused all of these diseases of civilization.
In fact I consider myself as ethical to buy a lot of whole foods and a lot of fruit, even though a lot of the fruit that I’ve bought wholesale has gone off. Fruit is the natural food for humans and other many other animals to eat.
Maybe I should mention that I am an extreme misanthropist, I believe that the only chance the world has of surviving is if humans are somehow wiped from the planet.
Wrong.
Exactly the opposite is true: the higher food security the lower the birth rate. If you want to maximise population growth, decrease food security.
There is neither logic nor fact behind this ridiculous claim that global population growth is in positively correlated with food production
Wrong.
Or perhaps i should say, this is unsupportable nonsense. How bid is too big? how big is enough? How did you arrive at those figures?
“Too big” is an absolutely meaningless assessment.
Wrong.
The world currently produces 25% more organic, raw, fresh food than it can physically consume. For every 100 tonnes of organic, raw, fresh food produced, another 25 tonnes is dumped in the ocean or burned.
Wrong.
This doesn’t even make any sense. What do you think that “crappy processed and factory food” is made from? Sump oils and rocks? No, it’s made from organic, raw, fresh food.
Wrong.
To the extent that humans are “designed” to eat anything, we are designed to eat grains. If you want to assert that we are not designed to eat grains then we are not designed to eat anything at all.
Wrong.
People the world over, in Sudan, for example, have a diet that consists of >80% grains. They have almost no incidence of diabetes, obesity, and tons of other ailments. As such it’s rather clear that this statement is patent nonsense.
Wrong.
The ancient Egyptians, for example, never suffered from “all of these diseases of civilization”.
Wrong.
Some types of fruit may be one of the many “natural” foods for humans to eat, but certainly no moreso than grains, liver, bone marrow, tubers or lard.
And of there is simply no way that fruit such as oranges or tomato, which are found only in the Americas and Asia, could be a “natural food” for a species which evolved in Africa.
If you are concerned about “natural” foods you should be eating more zebra and millet and less tomato and orange, since the former were widely consumed by our ancestors and the latter are completely unnatural exotics.
Given that pretty much very statement that you have made has been provably false, I think we all know how much credence to give that idea.
this. being the practical view. it makes more sense to support the eating of stuff at sustainable rates over the equating of the life of a shrimp to that of a whale.
To what end? I’ve never understood this POV.
Without humans on the planet animals are still going to suffer – “red in tooth and claw”. That’s all there’s ever going to be; endless struggle and competition just to survive.
And sure things might look more picturesque in an unspoilt state, but non-sentient life is not going to appreciate that.
If it’s just life for life’s sake…well, with a sentient species life has a chance to get off this planet, otherwise we know it’s doomed.
Finally, if it’s preserving the set of species around now…well, that’s not going to happen anyway. Most species become extinct.
So where are you coming from?
</rant>
I can think of an example where you can have a more ethical murder.
If you are stranded and starving with a group of people, it would make more sense to kill the heaviest 300lb person for food than to kill a 100lb person. The 300lb person would feed more people.
Struggle and competition can be great things. You know how humans often love to have competition and to struggle a bit? The other animals would live in relative harmony for the vast majority of the time if it weren’t for humans.
Non-sentient as in non-human? That is a ridiculous attitude to have, cats and dogs are about the exact same as humans except less smart. The idea of sentience is just a meaningless label to separate humans from other animals, when all we have is a much bigger brain.
True, that could be a valid argument for the existance of humans.
Better for most species to become extinct than genetic and extremely malformed and suffering genetic soup to emerge in the future.
blake, you have no idea what you’re talking about. I feel it would be unethical to provide you with information based on your lies and mistruths.
I don’t like to respond to your extremely uninformed nonsense but for one oranges certainly are native to Africa and eaten by our ancestors. Tomatoes, cucumbers, apples, sweetcorn, courgettes, grapefruit, mangos I think, passionfruit I think and other fruits weren’t, especially berries so I don’t eat them as much. However oranges, melons, figs and bananas were. For example: http://www.fruitipedia.com/monkey_orange.htm Our monkey relatives in the new world have however been co-evolving along with fruits in their land and therefore the fruits there are likely to be highly compatible with human biology also, (though I’m sure blake has no idea what I’m talking about here either and thinks I’m just getting it wrong again).
Our ancestors did not eat zebras and millet in large quantities, if anything they would have consisted of less than 0.1% of the diet. I know about this, I have read many books on this subject and many of these subjects.
You have no idea what you’re talking about.
YOU HAVE NO IDEA WHAT YOU’RE TALKING ABOUT.
Now hold on, hold on, before you say “oh he’s just saying that, hurr durr, he is trying to attack me in a fight, i’ll say something back and get him good”… no, I am saying the absolute truth. YOU HAVE NO IDEA WHAT YOU’RE TALKING ABOUT. If you think you do you are just deranged. I am being honest, relating a true statement to you.
You blake are a fraud, a troll, a liar, a charlatan, an ignorant and uneducated empty vessel. Do not talk to me again or comment on my posts and I’ll afford you the same consideration.
Of course you can have your last word, I WON’T RESPOND NO MATTER HOW MUCH I DISAGREE OR HOW WRONG IT IS, then don’t ever talk to me or about my posts again.
ModernPrimate, your next post like that will probably result in your account being banned. You are not allowed to insult other posters in this forum (or any forum except the Pit), and you repeatedly broke that rule in that post. I’m giving you a formal warning, and do not do this again.
Yep, competition can be good when there’s some useful purpose to it, or the struggle itself is fun.
In the case of nature there’s no purpose, and a great deal of suffering involved.
What?
“About the exact same”?
Well, it’s true, of course that we are very similar to other animals aside our sentience. But sentience is very important. I might append to that “in my opinion” and that in itself would highlight the point – only sentient creatures even have an opinion. Or goals or objectives beyond simple instincts. Or gain abstract knowledge of the universe etc.
I don’t get your point here. It doesn’t make grammatical sense.
How much dietary nutrition is in fat and gristle?
Warning acknowledged.
But why it there ever some useful purpose to it? Why is it ever fun?
It is fun because it’s natural. It helps us as a life-form. It helps us to exercise. It prepares us for bad times. That’s why it’s fun.
Actually animals compete with each other all the time for fun… ie. play. Little kittens fight with each other, that’s a playful competition. Even lifeforms as low as insects are known to play-fight with each other like this.
As I stated, 99.9%+ of the time there is any struggle in nature is when humans have been involved. Other times the animals are living in bliss. They have all the food they need. There is no “struggle”, the animals are perfectly happy. If times get harsh, eg. precipitated by an Ice Age, then yes animals struggle. But they still look out for each other of the same species, and as harsh as it may sound… it may cull the weakest from the species in the most natural way possible. Some people are so filled with images of nature being cruel and cut-throat but nature isn’t anything like that, only humans are like that.
Well again, I don’t believe that “sentience” is in any way distinguishable from just having a much bigger brain and therefore able to speak etc.
“Only sentient creatures even have an opinion” is in my opinion false. A dog can have an opinion on who he likes best, on what his favourite food is, etc. Just because you don’t see the dog writing down or saying these things, doesn’t mean he doesn’t have an opinion on them. An opinion is a mental representation of something whether you express it or not. I think it’s very offensive and hypocritical to deny other animals that just because they can’t express their opinions.
If you had a really smart dog growing up, I doubt you would feel this way about animals, (unless you were totally beyond help). Smart dogs develop grudges, show powerful emotions, feelings, display intricate behaviours, etc. I know there are dogs that are just… “there”. Also monkeys have outperformed humans in at least one number memory test.