# Is there any moral defense for eating meat in modern first-world countries? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [January 15, 2021, 11:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-moral-defense-for-eating-meat-in-modern-first-world-countries/930637 "2021-01-15T23:19:35Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2021, 4:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-moral-defense-for-eating-meat-in-modern-first-world-countries/930637/61 "2021-01-16T16:28:37Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > killing animals for food becomes unnecessary and therefore immoral. That which is unnecessary is immoral? You sure that’s what the standard should be? ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2021, 5:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-moral-defense-for-eating-meat-in-modern-first-world-countries/930637/62 "2021-01-16T17:27:02Z")
Look, I get to feel morally superior to half my fellow Americans because i saved democracy by voting for Biden, not Trump. You dont do anything by eating vegan, not meat, so if you want to feel morally superior donate some money or help at a food kitchen or something. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2021, 5:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-moral-defense-for-eating-meat-in-modern-first-world-countries/930637/63 "2021-01-16T17:34:03Z")
> [@TriPolar](#): > > That which is unnecessary is immoral? You sure that’s what the standard should be? As DeadTreasSecretaries pointed out all the way back in post #18, the standard is that “inflicting unnecessary suffering on anyone or anything that can experience suffering is immoral”. If unnecessarily killing animals is immoral because it inflicts unnecessary suffering, and if eating meat is not a dietary necessity in a modern wealthy society, then killing animals for meat in a modern wealthy society is unnecessarily killing animals, and therefore immoral. Duh. You may not agree that unnecessarily killing animals is immoral, or you may not agree that humans in a modern wealthy society don’t need to eat meat, but if you do accept those premises, then the conclusion follows. Trying to duck that conclusion by misrepresenting the premises is, as I said, just making the duckers look silly. > [@DrDeth](#): > > Look, I get to feel morally superior to half my fellow Americans because i saved democracy by voting for Biden, not Trump. > > You dont do anything by eating vegan, not meat, so if you want to feel morally superior donate some money or help at a food kitchen or something. The defensive pettiness is really getting out of bounds here. Nobody in this thread, AFAICT, is trying to make you feel morally inferior. (In particular, as I’ve said repeatedly, I myself am a non-vegetarian, so I’m not pointing fingers at my fellow non-vegetarians.) All I’m doing is concurring that a logically defensible case can be made against the morality of human carnivory in a modern wealthy nation. I am really suprised that that’s provoking so much touchy resentment. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2021, 5:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-moral-defense-for-eating-meat-in-modern-first-world-countries/930637/64 "2021-01-16T17:38:43Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > Another factor is that slaves were undeniably human. Nobody who argued otherwise was taken seriously. Got a cite for the “nobody who argued otherwise was taken seriously” part? AFAICT there was absolutely [a whole lot of pro-slavery rhetoric based on the argument that “the Negro” was subhuman:](https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/frederick-douglass/) > [@](#): > > Some of the apologists for slavery claimed that blacks were beasts, subhuman, or at least a degenerated form of the human species. These arguments go back to at least Sepulveda’s arguments in the fifteenth century, which Bartolomé de las Casas famously countered (1552; see also, Frederickson’s review of the early history of racism [2002]), and were common in the American British Colonies and then the United States; for example, Thomas Jefferson famously intimates this point in his _Notes on the State of Virginia_ (1785: Query 14). ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2021, 5:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-moral-defense-for-eating-meat-in-modern-first-world-countries/930637/65 "2021-01-16T17:42:33Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > You may not agree that unnecessarily killing animals is immoral, or you may not agree that humans in a modern wealthy society don’t need to eat meat, but if you do accept those premises, then the conclusion follows. Trying to duck that conclusion by misrepresenting the premises is, as I said, just making the duckers look silly. Sounds like you picked your criteria and premises to suit the conclusion, not the other way round. It’s easy to tell because you base it on the concept of necessity. You may not hold up well under the standards of necessity held by others. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2021, 5:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-moral-defense-for-eating-meat-in-modern-first-world-countries/930637/66 "2021-01-16T17:47:55Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > Got a cite for the “nobody who argued otherwise was taken seriously” part? AFAICT there was absolutely [a whole lot of pro-slavery rhetoric based on the argument that “the Negro” was subhuman:](https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/frederick-douglass/) The claims were made. But I stand by the fact that nobody took them seriously. Slaves were obviously human beings. I’m sure there were many people who legitimately believed that Africans were an inferior form of human in comparison to Europeans. But that’s not the same as believing they were not human. ---
**Author:** ![Toxylon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/f05b48/32.png) [@Toxylon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Toxylon)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2021, 5:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-moral-defense-for-eating-meat-in-modern-first-world-countries/930637/67 "2021-01-16T17:48:57Z")
> [@Delayed\_Reflex](#): > > why do they not believe, at a minimum, causing death and/or pain to an animal is a bad thing to do? Because animals inevitably experience pain and death, regardless of human action. Every wild animal dies prematurely and painfully, from either predation, starvation, or disease. Most natural ways to go are extremely painful, as the moose running in deep snow for miles with wolves tearing into her legs and belly would attest, or the squirrels that languish after weeks of hunger in my local woods as we speak, due to a natural crash in seed crop this year, would agree. Killing a wild animal with gun, bow, spear etc. is the quickest, most merciful death that animal individual could’ve hoped for. I eat mostly game, and my goal is to move to a 100 % game meat diet, meaning 100 % of the meat portion of my diet would be venison. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2021, 5:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-moral-defense-for-eating-meat-in-modern-first-world-countries/930637/68 "2021-01-16T17:49:22Z")
> [@TriPolar](#): > > Sounds like you picked your criteria and premises to suit the conclusion, not the other way round. These aren’t my “picks”, this is how the argument is framed by the OP. > [@TriPolar](#): > > It’s easy to tell because you base it on the concept of necessity. The concept of necessity in determining whether or not a particular infliction of suffering qualifies as immoral is not something either I or the OP invented. It is a pretty fundamental aspect of many arguments about ethics throughout history. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2021, 5:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-moral-defense-for-eating-meat-in-modern-first-world-countries/930637/69 "2021-01-16T17:53:36Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > The claims were made. But I stand by the fact that nobody took them seriously. Slaves were obviously human beings. > > I’m sure there were many people who legitimately believed that Africans were an inferior form of human in comparison to Europeans. But that’s not the same as believing they were not human. Distinction without a difference, really, if being “an inferior form of human” is considered to disqualify one from claiming the basic rights that apply to “non-inferior” humans, such as the right not to be enslaved. ---
**Author:** ![k9bfriender](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k9bfriender/32/3283_2.png) [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2021, 5:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-moral-defense-for-eating-meat-in-modern-first-world-countries/930637/70 "2021-01-16T17:59:15Z")
> [@DeadTreasSecretaries](#): > > I think taking the view that inflicting unnecessary suffering on anyone or anything that can experience suffering is immoral makes participating in industrial meat farming immoral. I don’t think this is particularly a controversial view. Nature sucks. Pretty much all animals before domestication had shitty lives, and found themselves at even shittier ends. We can certainly try to do better about humane practices, but in most cases, the animals that we eat are better treated and are more quickly and painlessly killed than is found in the life of wild animals. My _ideal_ for food animals is that they live a comfortable pleasant life, and then find themselves at a sudden end, with no suffering. My real concern on meat production is the environmental impact, in that many of them do produce greenhouse gasses, as well as the amount of tillage that goes into feeding them. I would have no problem with lab grown meat or other alternatives, as long as it is a reasonably similar substitute, and that it is at a reasonable cost. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2021, 6:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-moral-defense-for-eating-meat-in-modern-first-world-countries/930637/71 "2021-01-16T18:01:51Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > The concept of necessity in determining whether or not a particular infliction of suffering qualifies as immoral is not something either I or the OP invented. It is a pretty fundamental aspect of many arguments about ethics throughout history. Sure, but how many of those have resolved well? It’s one thing to talk about overwhelmingly accepted notions of necessity, I don’t think eating animals is one of those. It reduces the argument to nothing but an emotional appeal. I don’t buy the assumption that unnecessary suffering is an intrinsic requirement of eating meat. Certainly there are people who treat pets cruelly and shouldn’t be allowed to have them, but then some stretch that out to saying it’s immoral for anybody to keep any pets. I don’t see anything at all to the argument here presume that animals must be unnecessarily suffering if people eat meat and therefore it is immoral to do so. And if the first part of that argument falls apart then the second part is totally hollow. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2021, 6:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-moral-defense-for-eating-meat-in-modern-first-world-countries/930637/72 "2021-01-16T18:04:23Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > As DeadTreasSecretaries pointed out all the way back in post #18, the standard is that “inflicting unnecessary suffering on anyone or anything that can experience suffering is immoral”. > > If unnecessarily killing animals is immoral because it inflicts unnecessary suffering, and if eating meat is not a dietary necessity in a modern wealthy society, then killing animals for meat in a modern wealthy society is unnecessarily killing animals, and therefore immoral. Duh. Is it unnecessary? I agreed that causing animals to suffer while they’re alive in unnecessary. But I’m talking about the issue of killing animals for meat. Because we don’t just kill animals for meat. For the most part, we raise and kill animals for meat. And that’s an important factor. As others have noted, a lot of animals only exist because humans are supplying them an environment to live in. This is not altruism; we’re doing this because we expect to eat those animals in the future. But the fact remains that if humans didn’t eat meat, a lot of animals would not be alive. So the killings may exist. But are they unnecessary killings? If it wasn’t for the eventual killings, these animals would have never lived at all. So eventually being killed and eaten is the price they pay for being alive. Which is true for every living thing. All of us only experience life at the price of eventually dying. And after we die, something will eat our bodies. The connection between being alive and being dead is just more obvious with a meat animal. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2021, 6:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-moral-defense-for-eating-meat-in-modern-first-world-countries/930637/73 "2021-01-16T18:10:17Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > If unnecessarily killing animals is immoral because it inflicts unnecessary suffering, and if eating meat is not a dietary necessity in a modern wealthy society, then killing animals for meat in a modern wealthy society is unnecessarily killing animals, and therefore immoral. Duh. If I am the smartest supergenius in the world, and if the smartest supergenius should be world emperor , then I should be world emperor. See, if you start with two incorrect premises you can come up with _any_ logical conclusion. I have already shown that farm animals are not subjected to unnecessary suffering and that we are not living in such a wealthy society. " According to the USDA’s latest Household Food Insecurity in the United States report, more than **35 million** people in the United States struggled with hunger in 2019. In 2018, **14.3 million American** households were food insecure with limited or uncertain access to enough food. [https://www.feedingamerica.org/hunger-in-america#:~:text=According%20to%20the%20USDA’s%20latest,uncertain%20access%20to%20enough%20food](https://www.feedingamerica.org/hunger-in-america#:~:text=According%20to%20the%20USDA's%20latest,uncertain%20access%20to%20enough%20food). Thus both premises are false. So, of course is the premise that _the smartest supergenius should be world emperor_. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2021, 6:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-moral-defense-for-eating-meat-in-modern-first-world-countries/930637/74 "2021-01-16T18:10:43Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > The defensive pettiness is really getting out of bounds here. Nobody in this thread, AFAICT, is trying to make you feel morally inferior. Look to the OP, not your own posts. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2021, 6:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-moral-defense-for-eating-meat-in-modern-first-world-countries/930637/75 "2021-01-16T18:11:45Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > The claims were made. But I stand by the fact that nobody took them seriously. Slaves were obviously human beings. Yes, since every slave society had freed slaves. > [@k9bfriender](#): > > My real concern on meat production is the environmental impact, in that many of them do produce greenhouse gasses, as well as the amount of tillage that goes into feeding them. This is a good argument for eating _less_ meat, as my cited book much earlier proves. Environmentally speaking, ideally we shoudl eat less meat. Note a few things about that- animals are fed dent corn, not sweet corn, the kind we eat. Dent corn yields 8-10 times more per acre than sweet corn. And then, animals can eat the silage - corn leaves and such, we cant. ---
**Author:** ![WalterBishop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/aeb1de/32.png) [@WalterBishop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WalterBishop)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2021, 6:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-moral-defense-for-eating-meat-in-modern-first-world-countries/930637/76 "2021-01-16T18:36:08Z")
I don’t believe it’s possible to make a coherent moral case for eating meat. A person can say that they like eating meat, and that their subjective enjoyment of, say, a good steak, is more important to them than other considerations like animal suffering. However, this is an _aesthetic_ argument, not a moral one. Moral arguments strive to determine what is _objectively_ good. To make a moral argument for eating meat, one must demonstrate that the benefits of doing so objectively outweigh the likely consequences. This is a very difficult case to make. The first principle, in my view, is that the primary goal of any moral system should be to guide people to make decisions which reduce suffering wherever possible. The second principle, is that animals are capable of suffering. The final principle is that our reliance on industrial farms to obtain meat inflicts considerable suffering on animals. Therefore, in order to justify eating meat one must demonstrate that the suffering caused by _not_ eating meat outweighs the suffering inflicted on the animal. I don’t think it’s possible to make such a case. We don’t live in a state of nature, never knowing where our next meal is coming from. And the existence of millions of healthy vegetarians around the world is proof positive that we don’t _need_ meat to survive. Therefore, I see no way to morally justify the treatment of animals on industrial farms. On industrial farms, animals are confined in extremely close, unhygienic, and uncomfortable quarters, fed diets which are unnatural to them, and are killed with little regard for their suffering. On top of that, they’re pumped full of antibiotics which accelerates the proliferation of so-called “superbugs”. Furthermore, industrial meat farming has serious environmental impacts. I don’t believe it’s possible to convincingly argue that these measurable harms are outweighed by one’s enjoyment of meat. I concede that, for some people, eating meat may be medically necessary. If one suffers from anemia, for instance, one could argue that the harm caused by abstaining from meat outweighs the harm caused by procuring it. However, very few people can avail themselves of that argument. For the vast majority of is, eating meat is a luxury we can easily do without. ---
**Author:** ![k9bfriender](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k9bfriender/32/3283_2.png) [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2021, 6:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-moral-defense-for-eating-meat-in-modern-first-world-countries/930637/77 "2021-01-16T18:39:33Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > And then, animals can eat the silage - corn leaves and such, we cant. And that alone was one of the major benefits of domestication of animals. There is a whole lot of stuff out there that we cannot eat. But those animals over there can, and then we can eat them. Can a human eat grass? Sure, if you feed it to a cow first. 🙂 But yeah, we should do what we can to make sure that our agricultural practices are humane, sustainable, and environmental sound. We also need to make sure that our food production is such that we have enough, at an affordable cost, that we don’t have people starving for lack. _We_ can’t eat grass. I’m not against lab grown meat or substitutes, but they also need to be sustainable, environmentally sound, and affordable, or they really are not an improvement. I was in a discussion a while back about butter, and it was claimed that a certain type of margarine was superior to butter, and didn’t rely on animal products. Looking into that product, I found that it used palm oil, which the production of is a horrible story from both an environmental _and_ humanitarian standpoint. Just because something is not made of meat doesn’t make it any more “moral” than something that is not. ---
**Author:** ![WalterBishop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/aeb1de/32.png) [@WalterBishop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WalterBishop)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2021, 6:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-moral-defense-for-eating-meat-in-modern-first-world-countries/930637/78 "2021-01-16T18:41:47Z")
> [@octopus](#): > > If a superior species arrived/developed on earth what moral principles would you appeal to for your survival? This is an extremely good question. Any sufficiently advanced civilization could use the same arguments many in this thread have put forward for eating meat as justification for eating _us_. > [@DrDeth](#): > > Why would we need to? Unless you are saying it’s a superior species that eats intelligent tool using self aware creatures. And that is a oxymoron. Is it? The aliens might say _“Yeah, you can use tools and everything, but you’re still too primitive to care about. You can’t even see in four dimensions!”_ ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2021, 6:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-moral-defense-for-eating-meat-in-modern-first-world-countries/930637/79 "2021-01-16T18:41:57Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > Distinction without a difference, really, if being “an inferior form of human” is considered to disqualify one from claiming the basic rights that apply to “non-inferior” humans, such as the right not to be enslaved. I don’t agree. I think that, by admitting they were human, they made it harder to argue that those rights shouldn’t apply. They’d have to argue why whatever made them inferior was enough that they were always inferior to every single white person. Usually intelligence is what I see used, so they’d have to argue that a black person is always less intelligent than any white person who it was wrong to enslave. And since that was rather evidently not true, that moral argument did not work. The same argument about intelligence is usually what’s used about animals. They aren’t sapient. They may be conscious, but they have no theory of mind, no ability to reason, no way of thinking about future events. The main argument for why it’s wrong for a human to kill another human is simple: “I won’t kill you if you won’t kill me.” That can only work if they can anticipate the future hypothetical action of being killed, reason this means of preventing it, and then communicate this idea to one another and form an agreement. This is repeated and becomes a baseline rule for the social contract, one that can only be overridden by sufficient cause and violation of the social contract. You can argue other reasons not to kill animals, but the main one that is why we consider murder a crime isn’t there, as I can’t communicate with the animal that I won’t kill it so it won’t kill me. Of course you can also make suffering-based arguments. The problem I see with those is that it’s possible to kill without causing suffering, so all it does is say that modern or other cruel meat production methods are wrong, not that meat-eating as a whole is wrong. That to me is the most viable argument, the one I think will work eventually–just not now. Necessity is still a valid argument. And I would argue that we can use the relative costs to see that meat is still a necessity at this point. The cheapest complete protein to consume right now is chicken breast–or, at least, it was last I checked. And we have people who do not have sufficient food. As long as people have to buy their own food, meat serves a purpose. Then there are those of us with dietary restrictions for whom trying to add additional ones like not eating meat makes things much, much more difficult. I have stomach issues that, when they flare up, significantly reduce the foods I can consume. The alternatives are much more expensive, and I make very little money. It makes the necessity argument stronger for us. That’s my moral “defense.” It’s not that I think there’s no argument that the current system of meat production is wrong. It’s that we’re still not to the point where we can remove meat from our diet without harmful consequences. I think that, once there is a viable solution to a cheap replacement for meat, that’s when the vegan argument will explode and become much more widely accepted. It will become more viable to be against the cruelty of meat production, and more likely that corporations would switch to cheaper alternatives that can replicate the role of meat. But, until then, I don’t see society changing. I’m all for people who can not eat meat to keep pushing for change, but I’m personally going to continue consuming meat. ---
**Author:** ![k9bfriender](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k9bfriender/32/3283_2.png) [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2021, 6:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-moral-defense-for-eating-meat-in-modern-first-world-countries/930637/80 "2021-01-16T18:51:07Z")
> [@WalterBishop](#): > > I don’t believe it’s possible to make a coherent moral case for eating meat. A person can say that they like eating meat, and that their subjective enjoyment of, say, a good steak, is more important to them than other considerations like animal suffering. How about the existence of an animal? Is it better for there to be an animal, that is fed, sheltered, even pampered throughout its life, given comfort and care, or is it better that that animal had never been born? There are hundreds of millions of animals that exist because we want to eat them. Is it more moral that they don’t? As far as the suffering argument, sure, we should do what we can to limit that, as well as the environmental damage. But those are arguments for improving our agricultural practices, not for ending animal husbandry altogether. And, as @DrDeth has pointed out, it’s not _just_ about enjoyment, it is also about survival. Sure, there are other things that can replace meat, but are they affordable to _everyone_? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-moral-defense-for-eating-meat-in-modern-first-world-countries/930637.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-moral-defense-for-eating-meat-in-modern-first-world-countries/930637.md?page=5)