I don’t mean to beat a long-dead horse, but I recall an earlier thread I started in which I asked whether I had successfully refuted a certain argument in favor of eating animals. Many who responded raised legitimate objections, which I was looking for.
But some responded something along these lines:
I wonder how these people feel about sexual infidelity, theft, or tribal warfare. These things are also “part of how the world is”, but you don’t hear people say things like this:
Dear Idiots Who Follow This Type of Reasoning: Whether or not something actually does or does not occur has no bearing on whether or not it is right or wrong. If nobody in the world ate meat, that would not indicate that eating meat is wrong. If everybody in the world ate meat, that would not indicate that eating meat was morally alright.
This type of thinking is closely related to Just World Theory, which is the belief (never subscribed to directly) that the world is basically a just place, and anybody who has something bad happen to them “had it coming to them”. Just World Theorists can’t imagine that the status quo would actually incorporate immorality.
The worst thing is that those who employ the above Just World-style reasoning act as though they’re not being moralistic. Saying that things as they are are morally alright is a moral statement. Believing that the status quo is morally good is not less moralistic than believing that a radical change needs to take place.
It is, however, a useful tool when arguments run along the overheated lines of “this practice will destroy society!” and one can counter “society has been engaging in this practice for thousands of years, with no destruction apparent.”
“I didn’t make the world, I just try to live in it” - Can’t remember the source.
It’s worth noting that contrary to your argument, rape is not really a part of nature.
It can and does happen, but even in the most tribal societies people form bonds and have consensual sex. I would submit that most human mating over the millenia which has lead to procreation has been voluntary, and that rape has been more of an outlier.
Most people go through their daily lives without murder and rape, which both tend to be exceptional.
Inequality, however, is and always has been a constant, as people are not actually equal in anything but a theoretical and aspirational way. No realistic plan can be put forward that would actually eliminate inequality, just ameliorate it.
On the meat-eating point, I would argue that being naturally inclined to do something, or requiring to do something, by the needs of the body for easy protein, can provide a moral justification. We are omnivores, we eat meat and plants. It’s what we are.
Nothing can change us from being an omnivore, even if we abstain from meat a la Star Trek, we are still omnivores.
I agree completely. I am not arguing against the idea that claims like “atheism will be the downfall of Western Civilization” should be held against the background of history.
So then, with respect to the recent thread on feeding cats a vegan diet, do you mean that a cat’s natural existence, including its instinct to kill and its need to consume meat is morally wrong? Because I see that as one of those “that’s-how-it-is” things.
I think you are exaggerating a bit. It does matter, if only in the sense that, “humans are omnivores” is a statement that can only be made if a the majority do eat meat, and that a majority could only do so if they didn’t find it morally repugnant.
But I agree with you that it is not the end-all statement. You need to take the statement and explain why it has a moral implication.
All normative statements are informed by how things actually are, but some people just do this.
It’s that way ------> It should be that way.
This is simplistic and nonsensical. But that’s basically what people do when they say “look, people eat meat, that’s just the way it is. Deal with it.” They’re saying that people are carnivores and if I don’t like it, I’m out of touch with reality.
It’s a really stupid way of arguing for something.
Well, nothing’s stopping you from analyzing anything you want, but nobody is compelled to share your concerns. I can’t personally work up a decent moral froth about any of those.
I think that somebody who thinks that a topic isn’t worthy of moral concern needs to make an argument for that view. I think that we have no point in addressing polar bear eating habits because there’s nothing we can effectively do about it. Polar bears can’t morally reflect.
But there are a lot of human issues where action actually can be taken to work on a problem, such as poverty. In such cases, somebody who submits that the issue shouldn’t be morally analyzed ought to explain why.
Well, I think you need to make an argument that they need to make an argument.
Yeah, but if we were that distressed by it, we could just hunt the bears to extinction.
That’s not the point I was making. I’m not trying to stop or discourage anyone from morally analyzing whatever they want - I just don’t recognize the need to justify my disinterest.
Frankly, if I was going to analyze poverty, I wouldn’t sweat the moral angle. I’d be looking for solutions involving economic initiatives (i.e. how can it be fixed). The morality issues (i.e. what sins brought this about), I leave to others.
In OUR society. Go back to humans in the state of nature ( or as close as humans get ), and murder and rape are the norms. The women tend to be in the hands of the man who killed her last man to take possession of her ( who in turn had killed the man before him ). Everything of value goes to he who is willing to kill for it the most, and the best at killing. Most people die of murder in such cultures.
We live in a FAR more peaceful, safe society than that of the past. Especially the distant past.
“That’s the way the world is” is morally important if it is a common practice of the large majority of human actors and is perceived by almost all people to lie safely within human normative boundaries.
If you are going to tilt at the windmill of meat eating for someone to remind you that meat eating as part of an omnivorous diet is the dominate nutritional paradigm for humans is hardly beside the point if you are attempting rhetorical suasion to your non-meat POV.