Eating Meat, Preference or Necessity?

[vhawk01]

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I suppose so, if you equate raping and eating a child (which pretty much anyone would consider barbaric) to raising and killing an animal (which some would consider barbaric but most would not). If people stopped breeding animals for the purpose of eating them, I would gladly discontinue the practice. I know this is a terribly smarmy response but it is the truth - the only reason I would become a vegetarian would be to take a stance on the issue, and I do not feel strongly enough about it to take that step just yet. Hopefully one day I will get a pet chicken and my love for it will stop me from eating meat ever again (this sounds idiotic but I really want a pet chicken and I have a feeling once I do, that will be it for meat for me). I do think a lot of people have made good points about why slaughtering animals is wrong here, though.

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No, I am not comparing the raping and eating of a child with the raising and eating of an animal. I am saying that the 'thats the whole reason it exists in the first place' argument is invalid. The reason we cause a sentient, suffering being to exist has no effect on what we are then allowed to do to it.

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Well, if you want to argue that animals should never be bred for food (if other means are available), I honestly cannot provide a counterargument to that and I do not think I would want to. However, as I stated earlier, I just cannot make myself feel bad about eating meat at the moment (although I have in the past), probably in the future I will at least phase out most meat besides fish as I become more morally inclined. On the other hand, I don't think I would ever campaign for vegetarianism or attempt to push people towards those beliefs.

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Which is a good point. Not all people feel empathy for the same ingroup. My ingroup is probably larger than the average persons, and I can't really give any good reasons for it. Its just the way I feel. Many peoples ingroups are only their family, only their sports teams fans, only their nation, only their race, or only their species. Mine is slightly larger than this, and includes at least chimps. This isn't to say I can't recognize differences among members of my ingroup, or that I can't break it up into other groups when needed, but in general, thats who I empathize with.

Is this somehow better than the other ingroups? I don't see why. Empathizing only with whites, or only with Americans, or only with Vhawks are all also valid, in theory. But its the narrower ingroup classifications that, in part(in small part? I dont know), leads to racism, xenophobia, and all sorts of despicable acts. We have an innate desire to do good for our family, our ingroup, because we identify with them, and we share their genes. It has been argued that it is nearly impossible to commit immoral acts against members of your own ingroup. You must either exclude them before you do it (dehumanizing them) or exclude them after you do it (cognitive dissonance). The wider my ingroup, the more likely I am to be compassionate towards a larger number of people. But this is very likely detrimental, genetically. By spreading out my empathy, I am almost certainly dilluting the amount of benefit I give to people who share a large number of my genes. Wide ingrouping is probably selected against. But thats just a product of evolution and demands no moralizing.

[madnak]

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I don't see how eating meat and torturing animals are comparable. Theoretically, animals raised for meat are supposed to be treated well (I know they often aren't but this is a different point) and made healthy in order to be viable for consumption. The farmer takes care of the animal, raises it, and has it killed for the sole purpose of food and income. He/she derives pleasure not from making the animal die some horrible way but from the money made to support himself and family. Just because it is possible to live off of nothing but vegetable matter does not make it WRONG to raise and kill animals. Looked at another way, if we weren't raising pigs (best example) for meat, we wouldn't raise them at ALL and there would only be a few around as pets. These animals are no longer wild and only exist for commercial purposes, if they weren't being raised they would basically be extinct. Which option is preferable?

Torturing animals is another ballpark altogether. Cats and dogs are bred as pets, not as food sources (in most first world countries). By killing them and taking pleasure from it, you are only benefitting yourself in a manner that would be considered sick/sadistic by most. It is 'self-gain' in a way that a farmer is gaining from raising/killing animals but it does not benefit anyone but the killer. It also puts the animal through considerable suffering, which good farmers do not do.

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First and foremost, free range as a concept is great, but in reality the label doesn't mean particularly much. Don't think the animals lived happy lives because they're "free range" - farmers use many different ways to exploit what rules there are, and in many cases there are no rules so they just paste "free range" on virtually anything.

But let's deal with the facts here. Animals are theoretically supposed to be treated well, but they aren't. The fact is that a cat in the microwave suffers far less than the average farm animal these days. This may be valid even if we account for the fact that the cow brings pleasure to many, while the cat brings pleasure to few. If the cow gives pleasure to ten people, but also suffers ten times as much, doesn't your reasoning make the killing of the cow just as bad as the killing of the cat? Frankly, your reasoning seems inconsistent in general. You're using all kinds of strange arguments that involve different moral assumptions. I'll get to that.

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I do agree that bad farming practices should be put to an end e.g. chicken coops where they are piled on top of one another and cramped pig stys.

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But you're almost certainly complicit in it. I mean, it's fair enough if you make a clear distinction between paying for the meat and being responsible for the poor conditions, but it seems like a cop-out. "Well, yeah, most of the animals are mistreated. But I'm not the one mistreating them, I'm just paying others to do it." I'm not saying that's necessarily invalid, but do you apply a similar standard to other things? And would you buy meat if all of the animals were mistreated? How does the vast minority that aren't indicative of some kind of overarching moral distinction?

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Personally, I would prefer to be a vegetarian but I have not been able to phase meat out of my diet and I think I enjoy it too much to not eat it.

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Yeesh, I'll try not to be too harsh here, but I can't really respect that. If you think eating meat is wrong, then you can become a vegetarian. You may not be able to just drop meat all at once, but if you're creative and serious about this, you can definitely find a way. You're obviously an intelligent person. Therefore, this reads like "EXCUSE" written in big red letters to me. If it's not wrong, then there's nothing to worry about. It sounds like right now you're eating meat due to pure inertia, while you remain uncertain about whether it's something you want to do. I think it's better to enthusiastically eat lots of meat than to apologetically eat it when you "need it."

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But can you explain why you think eating meat is morally wrong besides raising animals in poor conditions?

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I know you asked vhawk, but I think I'm a "Vhawk approved" poster, and I actually am a vegetarian, so.

Poor conditions are 90% of it for me. I once posted my reasoning in very clear terms. But I doubt I'll help you very much. See, I have a number of ethical premises that I'm well aware of. I make ethical decisions on the basis of those premises. The premises themselves come purely from how I feel, but I'm rational in how I apply them. Some of the premises may seem a bit odd - "there's nothing wrong with killing," for example. But at heart it's mainly that I hate suffering and don't want my hands in it at all. There are also some social responsibility issues, but they're pretty minor for me - I'm not in the whole "boycott Wal-Mart" camp.

I tried being vegan to completely remove myself from the process, but I decided that it's impossible to remove all accountability without going to live in a cave or something, and I decided that the energy it took to keep it up, and the lost opportunities in terms of socialization, etc, were just not worth the sense of purity.

I am very happy with my choice to avoid all animal flesh - it seems like the ideal spot for me - but going up the scale isn't something I would consider "wrong." I think as people become more compassionate and intelligent in general, more and more will come to conclusions similar to my own, so the best thing I can do to promote vegetarianism is to encourage compassion. If the compassion isn't there, then go nuts. There's nothing wrong with not having feelings for animals. I know this doesn't apply to you, and that's what concerns me.

Also, I have no problem with hunting. I think hunting may even increase the mean happiness across animal populations by managing overpopulation. Even if it doesn't, the amount of pain seems relatively minor - especially for hunters who insist on instantaneous kills. I don't make distinctions among types of pleasure. The "I have a trophy" pleasure is just as valid to me as the "I just helped someone" pleasure (or even the "I showed that woman who's boss" pleasure). The question is how to maximize pleasure, and that is the basis for my judgment about validity - the overall impact on suffering. Thus, a serial killer who causes an excessive amount of pain in order to achieve a small degree of pleasure, is worse than the hunter, who causes a small amount of pain in order to achieve a large degree of pleasure.

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IF THAT IS THE SOLE PURPOSE FOR ITS EXISTENCE

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What do you mean by "purpose?" The purpose its captors have in mind? The purpose its mother has in mind? The purpose it has in mind? Personally, I don't think "purpose" is a relevant concept when it comes to animals other than humans. I think we are the only species developed enough to actually seek out a "purpose," and that it's very unfair to the cow talk about what its "purpose" is. It's the purpose we have for it, and that purpose is not in its best interest.

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I suppose so, if you equate raping and eating a child (which pretty much anyone would consider barbaric) to raising and killing an animal (which some would consider barbaric but most would not).

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I know vhawk covered this, but I just want to chime in. The important thing is that you haven't specified why the two acts are different. Vhawk is probing you because you've made many statements, and this interpretation seems consistent with all of them. Thus, the goal is for you to make another statement that clarifies why you see a difference between the scenarios he proposed within your context, or to acknowledge that no such difference exists.

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(this sounds idiotic but I really want a pet chicken and I have a feeling once I do, that will be it for meat for me)

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I don't think it sounds idiotic at all. Our ethics have to come from our feelings. There is really no other source (you can say God, but please don't). It sounds like the biggest source of concern for you is that all the farming practices are an abstraction for you, and you have trouble making them more immediate and concrete. I recommend visiting a slaughterhouse at some point, and seeing how the reality of the situation sits with you.

[Jiggymike]

Madnak,
Thanks for the great post. As you can see, I'm a bit torn on the whole situation and was just trying to argue the "Why It's OK" to eat meat side, since I do eat meat although I vehemently disagree with many of the practices associated with it and I am passionate about animals and conservation. If farm animals were treated the same way that they are at the best zoos in the world, I still don't know if that would make it "right" to kill them just because they are being treated well.

As for why I eat meat, I would simply say that I enjoy it and I don't feel bad about it - like you said, I feel a disconnect between farming practices/slaughtering an animal and the actual eating of the animal. When I really really think about it, though, it doesn't sit right with me. This leaves me with two options 1. think about it more and eventually become a vegetarian or 2. disregard it and continue with what I am currently doing (as per your inertia comment). For the time being, because I enjoy meat and because I find it easy to cook and buy it, I will certainly continue eating it. However, when I have more time and more financial freedom, I would like to experiment with cooking more vegetarian options and eventually phasing most meat out of my diet (maybe keep just a little in for protein + not going crazy from craving it).

When I go back through the posts, I don't agree with every statement I made (many were written under duress while in my lab at school) but I do agree with some of my general ideas (mainly that killing a cow is different than torturing an animal, eating meat isn't ethically wrong to me, etc.) I addmit I like a lot of the ideas that people put out there and I will have to give this serious consideration very soon. Anyhow I'd love to hear some more thoughts and opinions, this has been a fairly eye-opening thread.

[MelchyBeau]

Obviously microwaving a cat is wrong, meat tastes funny to me when microwaved,

However using a grill or a deep fryer, mmmmmm.

Do you have a problem with all meat?

For instance, If I go hunting and kill a deer for meat, is this wrong?

Is it just wrong to eat mammals? Or is it immoral to eat fish?

what about invertibrates like shrimp or lobster?

Or is it the fact we need to protect animals?

Farming does kill animals, and if we have to increase the amount of farmland we will be destroying ecosystems.



Farming Kills Mice

[vhawk01]

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Obviously microwaving a cat is wrong, meat tastes funny to me when microwaved,

However using a grill or a deep fryer, mmmmmm.

Do you have a problem with all meat?

For instance, If I go hunting and kill a deer for meat, is this wrong?

Is it just wrong to eat mammals? Or is it immoral to eat fish?

what about invertibrates like shrimp or lobster?

Or is it the fact we need to protect animals?

Farming does kill animals, and if we have to increase the amount of farmland we will be destroying ecosystems.



Farming Kills Mice

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Like most things, its a continuum, not a binary switch.

[kevin017]

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Like most things, its a continuum, not a binary switch.

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so pretty much we should do as much to protect animals as is convenient at the moment?

[vhawk01]

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Like most things, its a continuum, not a binary switch.

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so pretty much we should do as much to protect animals as is convenient at the moment?

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No. We should protect some animals more than others.

[kevin017]

when it comes down to it, you're basically going to end up drawing the line at the place where it becomes inconvenient/too difficult to continue protecting the animal. its not like when you chop a rat or shoot a deer it doesn't feel pain like a cow does.

[madnak]

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when it comes down to it, you're basically going to end up drawing the line at the place where it becomes inconvenient/too difficult to continue protecting the animal. its not like when you chop a rat or shoot a deer it doesn't feel pain like a cow does.

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No. Everyone who values the feelings of animals will have to draw the line at some point - the suffering is a cost, but it's not irrational or a matter of convenience if the benefits outweigh that cost. Just what level of benefit qualifies may vary from person to person, but it can definitely be internally consistent.

[Chromis]

I believe it is normal and natural for humans to eat meat.

What I find amusing is vegetarians who buy their non-meat molded into the shape of something they refuse to eat (veggie sausage anyone?).