Who claimed that YOU said that? That is indeed the whole point of this entire fucking thread.
Wrong again. Do you actually read the things that you claim to be discussing? Nowhere did the OP say, or even suggest, that “ALL the animals we eat are always suffering in their environment.” I can’t find anyone else in the thread who made this claim either.
Here are some of the points he made:
You see that word “often”? Doesn’t mean “all” or “always.” Just FYI.
The OP’s point was also about the broader morality of killing animals, even wild animals that have (presumably) led a completely free and natural existence. I happen to disagree with the OP that it’s a moral wrong to kill animals, but the thread is not simply about animals that are always suffering.
We have, as is always the case here in GD, moved on from the exact wording of the OP.
You seem bent upon arguing wording instead of the actual issue.
You claim to have seen cattle being raised for meat. Are they often suffering? Or, mostly content?
Sheep?
Pigs?
Now, I do claim ignorance about factory chickens, but our chickens werent suffering- except from extreme lack of anything resembling intelligence. Damn those birds were stupid… and people say turkeys are even more dumb… it beggars the imagination.
Were your animals often suffering?
This.
If it were the case that animal meat was sourced by letting animals live in peace, get to a pretty mature age, and then quickly, immediately killing them, I wouldn’t see it as particularly immoral.
Unfortunately, this is far from the reality of modern farming.
Plus of course even the animals that produce our milk and eggs suffer a lot, so the killing is just one aspect of the suffering.
I’m with the OP on this – I can’t justify my meat-eating at all, and my only excuse is I have just been two busy to think about it – converting to a vegan lifestyle would mean extreme changes to my day-to-day routine, and it’s not something I can just do right now with no thought or planning. And yes, I know this is a fucking weak excuse, and is also something slaveowners could have said.
That’s because morality is nothing but a human construct. Why would most animals have a sense of morality when their brains, as far as we can tell, aren’t wired that way? Ultimately, all of nature, humans included, lives under the reality of might makes right. Societies, individuals, cultures, etc. adopt moral codes because there are benefits in doing so.
So, yes, eating meat isn’t intrinsically wrong. But under some moral codes it may be a logical conclusion to come to that eating meat is morally wrong. It does make debates involving morality a challenge because the postulates must be agreed upon before the debate begins. Otherwise, all the participants can make logical arguments that come to different conclusions.
Really? Please tell me what suffering you have witnessed?
Look, I know PETA has flooded the internet with horror stories of animals at 'factory farms" (and there is no such thing, actually) , and no doubt some assholes somewhere dont treat their animals right.
But I know cattle are not generally mistreated, nor are sheep.
Because it’s awfully damned tasty.
As with the majority of topics, I haven’t “personally witnessed” anything, I’m just aware of the data on the topic.
Firstly I said “milk and eggs” so I’m primarily talking about cows and chickens.
I’m not sure that anyone would doubt that chickens in battery farms have a tough life, bred as they have been to massively overproduce much larger eggs than common fowl; their life expectancy is little more than a quarter of even breeds raised for meat, let alone common fowl’s. Plus they are “force moulted”, another cruel practice used by around 3/4 of all battery farms in the US.
I’m getting this data from scientific publications btw, not PETA (example (PDF))
Cows are relatively better off than chickens, but still have been bred to overproduce milk. To maximize milk output, they are repeatedly impregnated and their calves are immediately taken away so that we can harvest the milk.
I have said I have no defense of knowledge about every chicken farm, I have heard some are pretty bad, I know ours was quite nice, as those things go.
I dont see where either of those things produce “suffering”. They may sound bad, but is the milk cow suffering?
See, like i said I know PETA has flooded the internet with horror stories of animals at 'factory farms" , but unless you have something that shows "most " food animals are suffering, then you gots nothing.
I mean, I know there are some prison factory workers in China suffering, but that doesnt mean all or even most workers in China are suffering, and yes, that does mean I will sometimes choose another nation first but if the price is right…
You don’t think that starving the chickens for 1-2 weeks as a method to later boost egg production is suffering? Or that their lifespan is curtailed by at least a factor of 3 by the stresses on their bodies is indicative of the same?
I dunno, I guess you could be making a philosophical point that we don’t know that animals feel pain, but in that case we may as well say it’s not necessarily suffering if I walk around the farmyard with live chickens for shoes.
I’m pretty sure that battery laying chickens suffer. Or, at least, lead really unpleasant lives by chicken standards. I’ve started buying pastured chicken eggs for this reason. If there’s an economic incentive to treat the birds better, farmers will do it. And eggs are incredibly cheap for what they are, even the most expensive ones on the market.
In contrast, I’ve been to a lot of dairy farms, and as best as i can tell the cows are pretty happy. Yes, they’ve been bred to over-produce milk, but as long as they are miljed regularly they are okay. And yes, the male calves are killed young. But i don’t see a huge moral gulf between killing calves and killing steers.
There may be some moral advantage to avoiding milk from cows feed hormones to further increase the yield. Not because the milk is bad for you, but because milk cows are already a little past the healthy range for milk production, and pushing them even further leads to udder infections and generally less happy cows. But this is one place where the market has actually pushed pretty hard to restrain an immoral husbandry practice.
I actually agree with the op. I think it’s immoral to cause extra deaths and extra suffering in the world, and i think eating meat does both of these. But i, too, eat meat. I am happier and feel more satisfied when i do so. Do i need it? I doubt it. Anyway, I’ve made my peace with my carnivorous nature, but i look for ways to reduce the moral impact of my meat habit. Right now my freezer is full of parts of dead pastured animals who were slaughtered in facilities that claim to be humanely managed.
Thinking in absolutes is not the only way to go, although it simplifies daily decision-making. There are no guarantees of 100% guilt-free living.
I think the Jeffersonian situation could very well have been “Everyone else is doing it, I can’t afford to compete any other way - and I don’t want to give up my plantation altogether.” Instead of admitting that, they all started rationalizing about whiteness instead.
It’s not always that much of a hassle, even. I prepare a number of meatless meals, and no one ever notices the lack of meat.
Made a personal recipe of black bean soup last night, and it was asked what the difference between it and chili was. People were a bit shocked when I lead with, well, it doesn’t have any meat. Beans are protein, too.
However, if you look at what is happening in China, you will see that there are quite a number of children that are suffering from some severe vitamin deficiencies. They are eating bland, cheap, not very nutritious food.
Anyway, I did not say that a complete vegetarian diet has to be more expensive, I was saying that if it is, then that increases the food insecurity that already exists. If demand for vegetarian options increases, then that may increase the price for them as well.
It does take more work and more diversity of diet to get everything you need from vegetables. In fact, you really cannot get a couple of them, most especially b12, unless you take supplements. You eat a piece of meat from pretty much any mammal, and it will have everything you need.
You remember a year or so back when the woman tried to climb Everest on a vegan diet? She didn’t make it, she died in the attempt. The Sherpas who work the mountain are vegetarian most of the year, but they eat meat while on the mountain. There’s a reason for that.
There are plenty of vegan favorites that are more harmful to the environment, and often have quite a bit of humanitarian cost to them as well. But it’s not meat, so it’s better?
Huh. Let me walk over to the door here and open it. Nope, my dogs are staying inside.
Tell that to my dogs who bring me their leash when we are getting ready for a walk.
Death is a natural part of life, and suffering is never all that far away. Does the fact that we are creating more life, that these animals never would have lived if it were not for our desire to eat them counter the fact that they, just like any other living being, will also die?
Suffering would be a function of their treatment by humans during their lives before dying of old age. Has nothing to do with not eating them. However, most domesticated species maintained specifically for food would go extinct, at least in areas they are not naturally adapted to. Other predators would eat them, of course. However, we’ve decimated most predators of domestic animals (because they prey on what we’ve reserved to ourselves for eating), so there would be quite an adjustment necessary.
One wonders why we even invented leashes as dogs so love to heel.
This is a pretty misleading anecdote though.
- A vegan has now climbed Everest, Kuntal Joisher
- Actually vegans had climbed years ago; the issue was performing a climb where even all the gear was vegan.
- In the three days around when Maria Strydom died, 3 other climbers died. It’s not like it’s a walk in the park if you have the right diet, and we shouldn’t infer too much from one climber’s misfortune.
Again, my experience with cattle tells me they’re perfectly happy in their fenced-in environment. I don’t know nothin’ 'bout no sheep. (This here’s CATTLE country!)
But, alas, I have seen bad pig-keeping. Some people keep pigs in small enclosures, which rapidly fill with pig excrement, resembling the Li’l Abner cartoons: pigs basically just swimming in mud and excrement. Not all! Some pig-keepers arrange for large, clean enclosures. Takes a lot of work, because pigs poop a lot, and it’s sticky, nasty, wet poop. Cattle and horse poop dries out quickly; pig poop stays wet and nasty for much longer.
I’ve seen bad pig-keeping. I’ve never seen bad cattle-keeping.
I don’t feel this is true. Systems based on might are generally pretty unstable.
As an individual it rarely works in the long run. Even if you’re the biggest guy around and can overpower anyone else, other people are going to figure out they can overpower you by grouping together.
The same principle applies in larger settings. If your ruling group is outnumbered by the ruled group, eventually your ruled group is going to realize this and seek to switch roles.
And when you start talking groups, you have to consider the dynamics within the groups. There are going to be people who are at the top of the ruling group and people who are not at the top. And those who aren’t currently at the top are going to be seeking to move up.
This is why “might makes right” never works in the long term. You will have a constant shuffling of groups and individuals trying to give themselves an advantage in power so they can reap the rewards. And if they succeed, the rewards they gather will make them the target of the next group. Along the way, every struggle leaves somebody the loser and reduces the overall strength in the group - which makes them a more tempting target for some other group.
This is why stable systems don’t use “might makes right” as their guiding principle. They seek to develop an ideology that says that the group is serving a higher cause and that everyone is benefitting from the group.
You mean because they have to go to the bathroom? It’s not because they “want” to be leashed.
We were talking about cows (moo), not chickens (cluck). I have already conceded that factory chickens may not live the best lives, since I have never visited one. I do know that OUR chickens were as happy as chickens can be.