That’s what I was trying to get at above. There is no diet that will be “ideal” for each of these considerations. The least-cruel diet will not be the same as the least-environmental-impact diet, which will not be the same as the least-geopolitical-cost diet. To a large extent you must prioritize your values, because in this messy world they will likely come into conflict with each other.
I was vegetarian for many years for environmental/geo-political reasons. I was convinced that the “best” diet from that point of view was a vegetarian diet. But I don’t really love tofu or beans, so protein was always a problem. (This is another value you need to throw into the priority mix - how much you value enjoyment of your food. I have friends that are happy eating whatever sustains them and don’t worry much about the taste of it. I am not such a person. If I have a choice between eating a mediocre tofu dish and starving, I would likely starve.)
Eventually (after getting fed up with egg mayonnaise sandwiches while living in England) I started eating fish and seafood again. Then, recently, I realized that this was all quite contrary to my values. Seafood is enormously harmful to the environment, far more so than local beef (for example), plus the supplies are dwindling fast. My delicious fake meatballs are full of genetically modified soy, which is about as unnatural as you can get. None of these things are local (nuts are another major non-animal source of protein, and they’re certainly not local round here), so a lot of fossil fuel is burned in transporting it to me.
But my friend, who is vegetarian for purely “ethical” reasons (she doesn’t eat anything with a face) agrees with all of my reasoning for making the switch, but won’t do it, because her priorities are different from mine.
Surely you don’t mean that you’re really okay with eating anything, for any reason?
And no, I can’t answer the nitpicky questions, because I genuinely don’t know the answer. I also don’t think that we need to know the exact answer in order to make a law. The laws surrounding abortion are necessarily arbitrary in their cutoff points, as are the laws surrounding animal cruelty. The law, as anything else subject to morality, is a series of compromises.
Oh, and Tahssa, thanks for adding your brilliantly original satire to the thread–what would we have done without this utterly novel idea, so rich in implications, never before considered by anyone who advocates animal welfare? Bravo!
Then it just comes back to what qualifies as anyone as opposed to anything. Let’s not get tangled up in semantics.
I don’t follow what you’re saying here, I’m afraid. Explain, for example, the clear ethical rationale behind the Supreme Court’s decision in Roe v. Wade. What qualities does an abortable fetus have that a non-abortable fetus clearly does not have, and how are those qualities ethically relevant?
It would depend on where you draw the line, I believe. From conception, to when there is blood, to when there is neural activity, to viability (which depends on available technology), to arbitrary lenghts of gestation, to birth. They are all measurable landmarks. If law is going to set one of them as what divides abortable from non-abortable, I would expect to see some explanation as to why that particular landmark was chosen over the others.
ETA: Or in the case of a law regarding the treatment of farm animals, an explanation as to why that protection is given to some animals but not to others. If we legislate what is humane as a way to kill cows, why not the way we kill mice?
You might expect to, but to the best of my knowledge, you’d be disappointed. There IS no reasonably clearcut line for abortion, on one side of which we’re clearly dealing with a person and on the other side of which we’re clearly not; the law is necessarily arbitrary.
Again, you might like such an explanation, but you won’t get it. That’s not the way the law works.
There’s also the tricky question of cultural preferences. Depending where you are in the world, people might find it anywhere between disgusting and delightful to eat cows, rabbits, snakes, cats, crickets, chimpanzees … just to add another layer of complication to things.
Except that many people don’t see the law as doing anythign of the sort when it outlaws certain forms of animal cruelty. I’m really not sure what you’re suggesting the law should be: would you give some examples, please?
I had a topical conversation last week. The subject turned somehow to taking hamsters to the vet, and my friend was amused and shocked at the idea - “I would never take a hamster to the vet!”
Of course, that friend is a cat owner. And as soon as she said she would kill a sick hamster herself sooner than take it to the vet, she recalled her trip to Morocco. Apparently, where she was, alley cats were street pests, existing in public consciousness exactly as street rats exist to us. People would stomp on kittens and trap grown-up cats to kill them.
The difference in the way my friend (who would, and has, spent lots of money on her cat at the vet) and those people (for whom cats are a pest at best, and a major economic and health risk at worst) view cats cannot be considered “taste.”
People will never agree on what counts as “cruel.” Witness the debate over cropping ears and docking tails on pets. People who are indisputable lovers of the dogs and breeds in question disagree on whether it’s cruel or not.
Ultimately, I believe any question of cruelty will come down to “taste” - or, at least, subjective human values. The best we can do is to each make our own choices according to our own priorities, and legislate only when there is widespread agreement (e.g. docking and cropping is illegal in many jurisdictions where the public clearly supports it).
I don’t think that “taste” and “subjective human values” are equivalent; I think that’s my objection to useing that term. Of course any question of cruelty (genital mutilation, spousal abuse, torture of prisoners, long-term incarceration of drug users, dog fighting, really tough math finals, etc.) comes down to subjective human values. Certainly widespread agreement is the main way in a democracy that cruelty is prohibited–the other way, of course, being the courts acting upon constitutional or other pre-existing laws.
That doesn’t mean that such things are a matter of taste in the same way that liking or hating paisley is a matter of taste.
Hm. I agree with you, so I’ll amend my point somewhat: “taste” and “subjective values” (and even morals, for that matter) are just different points along a continuum. It is (IMO) so difficult to draw a line between them as to be meaningless.
Although this is certainly not where I was going with my OP, there are several laws regarding animal treatment. Prohibiting dog fights, saying that pregnant pigs need their own pen, animal abuse. Why is it ok to poison a rat but not a dog (both intelligent mammals)?
Most pet traps are cruel in the way they kill their prey. Bug zappers are common (and high-quality entertainment paired with a six-pack of Bud), but a dog-zapper would get you in trouble. Mousetraps are 79 cents at the supermarket but bear-traps are cruel.
**cowgirl’s ** example is a good one of different people drawing the line at different places. We think nothing of stomping mice and lizards, but cry bloody murder at stomping kittens. They stomp kittens but probably respect some other animals.
It is all taste (or personal preference), in the end. **The PC Apeman ** hit it a few posts back. Put a hole in your baby’s genitalia and go to prison, put one in her ear lobes and be so-darned-cute-I-could-eat-her-alive!. (Actually eat her alive and go to prison, of course)
I couldn’t care less about cruelty. Life is solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short. Get over it.
Nature does not value the majestic tiger over the paramecium, a fungus over a whale, or a virus over an eagle. I’m too smart or lack the willfull hypocrisy and self importance to make such value judgements.
For me, the basic ethic in these matters is economical in nature. Am I making efficient use of what I take? It’s not cruelty, it’s waste that’s the crime. Waste is more than simply not using something fully. Waste is taking more than is necessary.
I agree with your first two paragraphs. Now, how does the third one play out in your daily life, if I may bother you with a request for the anecdotal?
The questions remain for that particular set of priorities. How do you compare the waste produced by one course of action vs an alternative? Say potato vs cow. What is more wasteful and how do you reckon?
Instead of getting over it, I think I’ll support laws that prevent those capable of making moral judgments from behaving in a manner more cruel than necessary, acknowledging the inevitable inconsistency inherent in such laws.
In fact, that’s maybe what I should say. While I’d normally put it more diplomatically, I couldn’t care less about that inconsistency; get over it.
Sapo, I recognize that the law is terribly inconsistent on such matters. I think we’re all inconsistent on such matters; I think it’d be nearly impossible to be consistent. That inconsistency doesn’t mean that any judgment is suspect; it just means that we, both individually and as a society, do the best we can. Some actions I fully support (eating shrimp, for example); some actions I don’t support but don’t think should be outlawed (eating factory-farmed pork, for example); some actions I don’t support and I think should be outlawed (fighting dogs, for example). What’s the difference between the second and third? I’m not really sure, and I recognize that as a personal problem, but I’m not going to conclude that dogfighting should therefore be legal.
LHoD, thanks for your honest effort. As I said before, I have just come to a point in life (parenthood, high blood pressure) where I feel the need to reevaluate my life choices. Although I do not see myself becoming a Jainist, I am willing to consider whatever options are there for me to make the best of my life and the planet.
I really don’t expect the law to make sense (sad as that sounds), I was mostly hoping for some of our local, er, greener-ones to chime in with well reasoned arguments in pro of veganism, vegetarianism, animal rights protection, etc. Most of the websites for these are really thick with propaganda and disinformation.
I am all for people being free to make their choices based on taste alone, I just like to make my choices with some reason to back them up (even if I sometimes make unreasonable choices after all the thinking).
