Obviously you don’t understand vegetarian logic. If they used the actual definition of cruelty they would eat Kosher beef.
Sentience is “the ability to feel, perceive or be conscious, or to have subjective experiences.”. Sapience is the ability to think as humans do. Even quite stupid animals are probably sentient. Sentient is often used as a synonym for sapience however, which confuses the issue.
Tell him that even a vegetarian or vegan diet directly results in the deaths of animals during crop harvesting. If he goes on about limiting the suffering you can argue that you also limited the suffering by not eating more meat than you do, and that functionally both of your lives depend on causing pain to a lot of animals, whether he directly eats them or not.
Technically not true. You can get complete proteins from plant sources by eating a varied diet. The only nutrient that’s completely absent from a vegan diet is vitamin B-12, which vegans take supplements for, and vegetarians can get from eggs/dairy.
Also, sentient simply means capable of feeling and perceiving. In this context, sentient means more “capable of experiencing pain, fear, and suffering” than “capable of memorizing multiplication tables.”
There are ways to ethically source eggs, dairy, and even meat, but it requires more money, more time, and a more proactive involvement in your food than most people bother with. Other than that, I got nuthin – I don’t believe it is ethical to factory farm animals.
As for the ethics of meat eating in and of itself (that is, regardless of source), neither of you are going to change their minds on that point, so is it really worth arguing? If it bugs you so much, don’t hang out with him anymore.
I think the biggest logical fallacy is that he only holds humans to that standard. How many times has he made the same complaint about cats or dogs…those unrepentant killing machines.
Ethical obligations are about reciprocity. We have an obligation to act ethically towards (that is, to consider the interests of) those who do, or at least who can might be induced to, act ethically towards us, and consider our interests in choosing their actions. Animals are not capable of- are not even capable of understanding - such ethical reciprocity, or of undertaking any ethical obligations towards us. Therefore we have no fundamental ethical obligations towards them.
There are probably other good reasons why it may not be wise to be wantonly cruel to animals, and even why it may, in some circumstances, be best to act as though we have ethical obligations to them. It may, for instance, be psychologically harmful to us, or to others who witness it, if we are wantonly cruel to animals. However, using them for legitimate practical purposes to advance the real interests of ourselves and other humans (including but not limited to, nutrition) is perfectly ethical.
This right here. I am a vegetarian, and my reaction is that he’s being a twat. Tell him you’ll eat an extra helping of meat any time he gets all self-righteous to you about his moral superiority.
Last I checked and to the best of my understanding, kosher slaughter was definitely not kinder than most well-done conventional methods - a properly-applied captive bolt should render the animal more or less insensate, and it can be killed quickly. Kosher and/or halal slaughter requires (again IIRC) slitting the throat and letting the animal bleed to death.
I wasn’t being literal in the example. Just pointing out the lack of reasoning in the ‘cruelty’ argument. Anyway, I’ve decided to join PETA, so I’m going down to the zoo to throw red paint on leopards.
Good plan; I hate those smug bitches.
Not to mention the snug britches!
As for the OP, the next time your “friend” makes a condescending remark, just say “Ugh” and bash him over the head with a club.
Go get a copy of “The Vegetarian Myth” by Liere Keith from the library.
There is just as much animal death and destruction from agriculture as raising animals for food. The “dead zone” from fertilizers in the Mississippi delta. Monocrop agriculture that has replaced multi-species prairie. How does he think all that corn/soy/wheat is fertilized? What about the global nitrogen problem? And the huge amount of fossil fuels used in agriculture?
Something HAS to die in order for something else to eat.
The biggest argument in favor of omnivoyeurism (heh!) is this: “nobody’s hands are free from the blood of other animals, not even vegetarians.” It is *literally impossible *for humans in modern society to not kill animals by virtue of their diet, whatever their diet–not even vegans can escape it. “Millions of animals are killed every year to prepare land for growing crops like corn, soybean, wheat and barley, the staples of a vegan diet.”
Frankly, I’m not sure why you’re even calling this guy a friend. More importantly, why would you want to go out to eat with him if he won’t live and let live on the diet bullshit already? Why bother arguing this line at all? Nobody should have to defend their diet choices, it’s not like you can force him to eat meat against his will. Why does he care?
I’m lucky that my sister is a laid-back veggie who handles good-natured ribbing from career carnivores (like my dad) fairly well. Outside of that, though, it’s just not a topic that comes up. She knows she’s a vegetarian, we know she’s a vegetarian, we don’t offer her meat because we’re not assholes, and nobody cares. She will bring her own veggie dish to family dinners and we all eat at the same dinner table (I actually tried her tofurkey at Thanksgiving, it wasn’t bad). She can find *something *to eat at any restaurant. No big deal.
Here is a good summary of the Keith book:
This…
It isn’t anyone’s business what you choose to put in your mouth or what he puts in his. Food choices, like religion and politics, are not topics for polite debate between friends. The response to rude is not more rudeness.
You aren’t going to convince him you are more ethical, he isn’t going to convince you to give up meat.
Fair enough. Now that I understand the terms better, I have no problem eating the meat from sentient beings, something I did not realize before today.
“There is just as much animal death and destruction from agriculture as raising animals for food.”
Given making most meat is inherently less efficient than going straight to what they eat ie vegetables etc, no way do I buy this one.
That there is still substantial death I think is a plausible argument, ie the best you can do is reduce. To claim it makes no difference I would need to see some awfully convincing evidence as its inherently suspect to claim its essentially identical. Wiki says this is refuted under the ethical vegetarian article, but of course that page by definition going to be a battleground.
Otara
That argument would never work on a vegetarian. (Unless they’re really dumb.) It’s only convincing to omnivores engaging in motivated reasoning. Since the animals we eat are fed several calories of agricultural crops for each calorie of meat they produce, it’s obvious that if you wish to minimize the suffering and death of small animals due to growing and harvesting plants, you have an even stronger argument against eating meat.
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I think the biggest logical fallacy is that he only holds humans to that standard. How many times has he made the same complaint about cats or dogs..those unrepentant killing machines.
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You seriously believe it’s legitimate to argue that humans don’t need to hold ourselves to any standard that dogs and cats don’t hold themselves to? Really?
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Go get a copy of “The Vegetarian Myth” by Liere Keith from the library.
There is just as much animal death and destruction from agriculture as raising animals for food. The “dead zone” from fertilizers in the Mississippi delta. Monocrop agriculture that has replaced multi-species prairie. How does he think all that corn/soy/wheat is fertilized? What about the global nitrogen problem? And the huge amount of fossil fuels used in agriculture?
Something HAS to die in order for something else to eat.
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Again with the motivated reasoning. No vegetarian who has spent ten minutes thinking about vegetarianism would fail to see right through this non-argument. The corn and soybeans that are being fed to our chickens and pigs cause just as many problems as the ones we eat ourselves – except it takes a whole hell of a lot more of them if they’re being processed through an animal intermediary first.
Jesus. I had a BLT for dinner and yet the arguments here have me half-convinced to go vegetarian myself.
There are plenty of animals alive today who would not be alive if it weren’t for meat-eating human beings, since they are bred or raised specifically for their meat. You might have an interesting debate with your friend over whether it’s more cruel for an animal to be killed and eaten than for it never to have been born in the first place.
It’s hard to produce a fact-based argument against an ethical position. The best you can usually manage is to find internal inconsistencies in a person’s ethics.
For example, ask him if he feels Martin Luther King Jr was an ethical person. If he says yes, point out that King was not a vegetarian. So this shows that a person can be an ethical person without being a vegetarian.