Background: I have a recent addition to my tiny inner circle of friends who is a vegetarian. Although I understand some of the basic reasons for folks to be vegetarians and try to include a vegetarian option or two when having a party, I’ve never really dealt much with vegetarians. I’m practically a carnivore.
We’re being more respectful of where we go out to eat, and it’s not like I think there’s anything wrong with the concept per se other than I can’t even comprehend it, but…
Vegetarian friend is a bit, well, haughty, and seems to look down upon us meat-eating neanderthals. His reasoning for being a vegetarian includes being a 2nd generation veg. and that eating meat is cruel to animals. He does try to stay away from eggs and milk, too, but realizes it’s not a terribly practical concept given his predilection for pastries.
Vegetarian friend is quite a debater, and I’d like to at least have something supporting the idea that, although it’s a perfectly understandable choice, there may be some logical holes to the concept. Are there? Can you help me out?
This is for a friendly debate only–not trying to convert him. Also, please don’t turn this into a vegetarian vs. omnivore-who-rarely-eats-meat vs. practical carnivore argument please.
The **New York Times Sunday Magazine **has a column called The Ethicist, which covers readers’ questions about, well, the ethics of a given situation. A few weeks ago they launched a…contest?.. of sorts where readers could submit their ethical arguments for and against a specific position. The first one up was “Is it okay to eat meat?”
I would expect you would find a lot of material there…
ETA: Here is a link to the pagewhere they announce the winners, but you may need to be a paid subscriber to view it…
Well, you could ask him why it’s OK for animals to be treated cruelly just because he likes his pastries. Other than that I got nothing - I stay away from “friends” who think they’re better than me.
Honestly, I don’t think there’s a logic based anti-vegetarian argument. At worst they are avoiding a protein rich, healthy in moderation, food source, replacing it with eggs and dairy which are a reasonable substitute.
The meat vs veg argument boils down to whether or not raising animals (then killing them) for meat is a bad thing.
That doesn’t mean there’s a need to look down on meat eaters, they just have a different view of the primary question. If meat isn’t inherently bad, there’s no logical reason to avoid eating it. If meat is inherently bad, there’s no logical reason to continue eating it.
Canine teeth are designed to rip apart meat, we are built to eat and digest meat, meat tastes very good especially when it was cute before I ate it. Calf, goat, lamb, rabbit, deer all cute and delicious. MMMM hungry now
That’s a good article, and agrees with my basic opinions, but I did have a WTF moment at “by eating meat, one is implicated in the killing of a sentient being.”
Are meat animals considered sentient beings, or is he saying that humans are killed so that I can find meat at Safeway?
Re: the OP, my main logical point would be that most of the vegetarian diets I have seen stressed the importance of taking a dietary supplement to make sure you get all the nutrients you’re not getting because you’re not eating meat. I realize it is possible to live a healthy lifestyle with or without meat, but based on the need for supplements (assuming it’s true…) it seem so to me that a vegetarian diet is actually not the way we are supposed to eat.
MN Maenad, he’s not that haughty about it, but it’s enough to irritate me. Also, he realizes he’s a big 'ol hypocrite when it comes to his pastries, but not enough to stop eating them. WordMan, thanks for that link. I’ll be looking at it this evening.
He acknowledges the nutritional value argument, but well, he’s on a higher level than a primal animal (or so he believes), so popping supplements aren’t that big of a deal. He’s never eaten meat so my only argument, “But it’s tasty tasty meat!” fails with him.
This is not factually correct at all. For starters, the human body has no need of any single particular protein in the first place, so there is no list of “all the proteins you need”. Proteins that a person consumes are broken down to their constituent parts and recombined into new proteins in the body.
All you need are adequate quantities of the eight essential amino acids, all of which are available without consuming meat. And, in fact, all of them are available from entirely non-animal sources, if one is willing to do a little extra work. (Although IMHO many people will not be able to obtain the percentage of their calories from protein optimal for them on a vegan diet.)
Point out what a mean nasty bitch Ma Nature is, far beyond our petty power to add or subtract, in creating animals that feel pain and actually care about whether they live or die, and then creating diseases, germs, parasites, and carnivores far nastier that us poor-ass carnivore humans, creatures like Lions and Tigers and Bears, oh my, that chase and catch other innocent animals and rip them apart alive or chow them down while they are still alive and struggling!
We miserable measly weak-ass humans didn’t invent carnivorism, and compared to the major players, we don’t even come close to doing it the Really Nasty Way like Real Carnivores do! Granted, we do it on an industrial scale, and there are ethical questions (something that Real Carnivores don’t even have a concept of!) about how they are treated during their whole lives and how they are slaughtered.
But the fact is, Real Life out in the wild is Real Rough and Real Nasty out there.
I see “cruel” defined as “deliberately seeking to inflict pain and suffering.” Eating meat does not inflict pain and suffering (except maybe to this dude’s sensibilities). Killing an animal could inflict pain and suffering, but it sure doesn’t have to, and I’d venture is generally done in an efficient manner that greatly minimizes if not eliminates the potential for that. Raising animals for meat probably induces some distress in some cases, but again it doesn’t have to and I suspect the overwhelming majority of food animals are not treated cruelly. The fact that he doesn’t like the idea of raising, slaughtering, and eating the flesh of animals doesn’t make it cruel to do so (i.e., “cruel” doesn’t mean “saddening or distasteful to me”).
Is he actually starting arguments? Tell him he’s rude and to mind his own business, and if he doesn’t, don’t be friends with him anymore because he’s an asshole. Are you the one starting this? Quit it.
I don’t see a point in even discussing it with him, let alone debating it. If he believes it is immoral to eat meat, he has a right to that belief. You are free to believe the opposite. It’s not a good idea to get into debates or arguments over beliefs such as this with your friends.
Exactly. I will never understand why anybody gives a shit what anybody else eats much less debate about it. You eat what you want, I’ll eat what I want and everybody can STFU about it.
Agree on snide, but the main argument would be consistency/hypocrisy, ie diet alone wont stop animals being killed. Does he wear leather, avoid products that ruin habitat etc etc.
Ie is his diet more about what he was brought up with and an issue of familiarity, rather than any real commitment to an ethical position. Pastries alone would suggest no.