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This, among other things,is what makes this man a world leader in Fringe Scientific Worldviews.Is he throwing out the complete history of animal evolution?Is he stating that we must now conscientiously “evolve” a new moral ethic? Perpendicular to the known world facts,concerning diets and man-animal relationships?Is he stating that the progenitor species of man,who were omnivores,were evolving incorrectly?Where in the timeline of man,were we supposed to stop using animals?Now!Now is the time for this evolutional “correction”?

One other point.In stating that we should beholden ourselves as equal to animals(which I do believe),how do we view the process of other animals preying upon other animals?Are we to state that we are “above this utility”,and in doing so aren’t we proclaiming that we ARE better than other animals?

If vegetarianism can stand on its own,regarding rationality and “moral ethic”(?!!?),then does one need to include the religous(???@!!??)to bolster these views?

What could have been alternatives to man hooking up a yoke to a team of oxen and plowing a field?What were the alternatives for using animal fur to insulate man on his migration northward out of Africa?Would we be here today if humans stopped eating meat thousands of years ago?
For anyone to argue against these past utilities,is an exercise in negative-time realities.
Now,here at the present,how can the human inhabitants of Earth be “taught”(?)that using animals for food,pets,or horsepower is morally unethical?Or does this code of ethics only apply to white,educated,comfortable peoples?Upper-end bourgeoise,and the intelligentsia?

What could have been alternatives to man hooking up a yoke to a team of oxen and plowing a field?What were the alternatives for using animal fur to insulate man on his migration northward out of Africa?Would we be here today if humans stopped eating meat thousands of years ago?
For anyone to argue against these past utilities,is an exercise in negative-time realities.
Now,here at the present,how can the human inhabitants of Earth be “taught”(?)that using animals for food,pets,or horsepower is morally unethical?Or does this code of ethics only apply to white,educated,comfortable peoples?Upper-end bourgeoise,and the intelligentsia?

I would add to your list the theory among EP and cognitive scientists that eating meat was a determinant in the development of our brains. Specifically, the observation that relatively large brains are massively energy-demanding and it would have been very difficult for purely vegetarian early hominids to feed increasingly larger brains. In modern humans, the brain consumes 20% of all energy while accounting for only 2% of body weight. It could be that the faculty for advanced abstract moral reasoning by which we now become vegans would have been biologically impossible to evolve without a meat diet.

Of course, VYAZMA, vegans will brush these arguments off as obsolete- what is true then is not true now so why play by rules which no longer exist? Police, books and internets didn’t used to exist either. So what?

I enjoyed this podcast and find Singer cogent and plain spoken.

I like and agree with the idea of a moral continuum- that there is a degree of moral value and that we do not need to impose black & white standards. To the Christian right Terri Shivo has equal moral value to any conscious, healthy person. This is madness to me, even though I would never say her moral quotient was zero. An embryo is not equal to an adult human and it is also not equal to nothing. I take these points as banal.. but surprisingly many do not.

I was a bit bored in digressions about religion-spawned speciesist bias in both that I think it is not correct and that it is not relevant to a serious discussion of ethics, but that is my atheistic bias I suppose.

Most surpising is what I did not hear: any reason to think meat-eating is inherently unethical. Singer said he became a vegitarian because he did not want to be complicit in the factory farming atrocity. He also said his chief concern is the conditions of life for the animals, that they do not suffer and participate in whatever social organization typifies their species and so on. These are reasonable points. Neither forbid imaginable (if not existant) cruelty-free meat-eating. This past election in California was a win for chickens (but humans, not so much) and is part of the increasing evidence we can successful reform our agriculture practices without destroying them and the economy with it. One small step forward.

[Most surpising is what I did not hear: any reason to think meat-eating is inherently unethical. Singer said he became a vegitarian because he did not want to be complicit in the factory farming atrocity. He also said his chief concern is the conditions of life for the animals, that they do not suffer and participate in whatever social organization typifies their species and so on. These are reasonable points. Neither forbid imaginable (if not existant) cruelty-free meat-eating. This past election in California was a win for chickens (but humans, not so much) and is part of the increasing evidence we can successful reform our agriculture practices without destroying them and the economy with it. One small step forward.

If someone wants to choose the time and place of their dying,it should be completely acceptable,politicaly,and socially.If someone chooses to terminate a pregnancy,so be it.If we can establish sound,non-arbitrarial methods for screening out severely defected fetuses/infants-great!!So on and so forth.As a matter of fact,most of these issues were relevant,thousands of years ago.
So in effect-todays groundbreaking(actually moree breaking)scientists,want to revert to a time when life itself,not laws and religion controlled life.
However,this doesn’t include the use of animals.This topic,somehow we want to move forward.Don’t get me wrong,I love animals.I hate cruel situations concerning the animal/human relationship.I don’t feel threatened about someones proposals towards the recognition of animal rights.I just can’t see where this fits into the picture.The whole picture.How does this jibe with the fact that we are animals ourselves?We are not better animals!!

...So in effect-todays groundbreaking(actually moree breaking)scientists,want to revert to a time when life itself,not laws and religion controlled life.
However,this doesn’t include the use of animals.This topic,somehow we want to move forward.Don’t get me wrong,I love animals.I hate cruel situations concerning the animal/human relationship.I don’t feel threatened about someones proposals towards the recognition of animal rights.I just can’t see where this fits into the picture.The whole picture.How does this jibe with the fact that we are animals ourselves?We are not better animals!!

I do not understand your point about us being animals. Yes we are, and? That makes it natural for us to exploit other creatures because thats what animals do? But we’re also inherently reason-capable and consider the short and long term consequences of our actions.. which is certainly as natural and animal-y as anything else about us.

VYAZMA,

You seem to be saying that if something is “natural” (appears in nature or is part of an evolved set of behaviors), that makes it automatically ethically ok. Animals eat animals, our ancestors evolved eating animals, so eating animals is automatically ok. There are a lot of problems with this approach. For one thing, it’s possible to declare almost anything morally ok based on such an argument. Cannibalism, rape, infanticide all occur in lots of animals besides humans, and these along with slavery, torture, genocide, pedophilia, and lots of other things we don’t think are good today have occurred throughout human history and can be argued to be “natural” human behaviors. Just because other animals do it or our ancestors did doesn’t mean it’s ok. Evolution and history make lousy justifications for moral principles.

As for our being animals, again I don’t think it matters. Of course we are, but that doesn’t mean we have to or should behave like others. We don’t live in burrows, eat our own feces (usually), make nests, or do any of a million other things other animals do. It’s not that we aren’t animals, it’s just that we are like us not like anything else. And the normal human tendancy, built into us by evolution, is to try and figure out the world and make rules for oursleves about how to live. It doesn’t make sense to call those rules “unnatural” just because other animals don’t have them.

There are lots of good argumetns against what SInger is saying, but dismissing him as “Fringe” and claiming eating meat is part of the natural order of things doesn’t work.

...So in effect-todays groundbreaking(actually moree breaking)scientists,want to revert to a time when life itself,not laws and religion controlled life.
However,this doesn’t include the use of animals.This topic,somehow we want to move forward.Don’t get me wrong,I love animals.I hate cruel situations concerning the animal/human relationship.I don’t feel threatened about someones proposals towards the recognition of animal rights.I just can’t see where this fits into the picture.The whole picture.How does this jibe with the fact that we are animals ourselves?We are not better animals!!

I do not understand your point about us being animals. Yes we are, and? That makes it natural for us to exploit other creatures because thats what animals do? But we’re also inherently reason-capable and consider the short and long term consequences of our actions.. which is certainly as natural and animal-y as anything else about us.

OK….Singer states he questions speciesm and dominionism.I agree with those concepts.I believe we are animals and we are not better animals than all the other animals.So in this context how can someone who understands that domionism or speciesm is wrong,turn around and say we’re better than animals,we can decide what’s morally right and wrong?If animals eat animals,and people have been eating animals forever,and will continue to do so,why try to protect animals rights in that context.Couldn’t an anti-specieist understand mans relationship with animals,the same way he understands other inter-animal relationships.
I have already spelled this out in the previous posts above.
Sate..on the other hand,Yes!Of course we are more cognizant,and can make less “instinctual"choices.So if someone chooses not to eat meat,I fully understand that,and respect it,on any level.Morally,economically,religously,squeamishly,etc…..!

VYAZMA,

You seem to be saying that if something is “natural” (appears in nature or is part of an evolved set of behaviors), that makes it automatically ethically ok. Animals eat animals, our ancestors evolved eating animals, so eating animals is automatically ok. There are a lot of problems with this approach. For one thing, it’s possible to declare almost anything morally ok based on such an argument. Cannibalism, rape, infanticide all occur in lots of animals besides humans, and these along with slavery, torture, genocide, pedophilia, and lots of other things we don’t think are good today have occurred throughout human history and can be argued to be “natural” human behaviors. Just because other animals do it or our ancestors did doesn’t mean it’s ok. Evolution and history make lousy justifications for moral principles.

As for our being animals, again I don’t think it matters. Of course we are, but that doesn’t mean we have to or should behave like others. We don’t live in burrows, eat our own feces (usually), make nests, or do any of a million other things other animals do. It’s not that we aren’t animals, it’s just that we are like us not like anything else. And the normal human tendancy, built into us by evolution, is to try and figure out the world and make rules for oursleves about how to live. It doesn’t make sense to call those rules “unnatural” just because other animals don’t have them.

There are lots of good argumetns against what SInger is saying, but dismissing him as “Fringe” and claiming eating meat is part of the natural order of things doesn’t work.

I hate to sound brusque,but I haven’t used the word “NATURAL"in any of the above posts.I explained my reasoning well enough.What is your counterpoint?Yes you can dispute my terminology,you can try to hollow out my evolutionary contexts,what you can’t do is provide a template for the education,and implementation for the eradication of the use of animals by humans.

Above quote:“just because other animals do it or our ancestors did doesn’t mean it’s ok"Huhn??What?Are we having the same discussion here?I’m not interested in contrived present day ethics.What does yours and other peoples ethics have to do with the past or the future.(the future being the continued need for many people to rely on animals,in this case)
Again-you used the word “natural"not me.I am speaking from a reality context,not a “natural"context.

McKenz…I would add that on the sum total of all scientific endeavors promoting euthanasia and vegetarianism could be considered fringe.And yes,how could you possibly state that eating meat is not the NATURAL order of “things”(?).
In above:“...claiming eating meat is the natural order of things” I never said “things” but I understand the gist.So…you can claim that eating meat is NOT part of the natural order of things…?

OK….Singer states he questions speciesm and dominionism.I agree with those concepts.I believe we are animals and we are not better animals than all the other animals.So in this context how can someone who understands that domionism or speciesm is wrong,turn around and say we’re better than animals,we can decide what’s morally right and wrong?

It is not about who is superior/inferior as a being so much as who has what capability. Humans have a capacity for both abstract reasoning and connecting that reason to our actions. Few or no other creatures have this property. I don’t tell fish how to swim and they don’t tell me what to abhor. Further, there is no way to be a living human and not decide what is morally right or wrong. Almost every choice you make has at least a tiny moral consideration. I could decide to eat the last donut knowing you want one, but whether I do or not I have made a moral choice. (I’d totally eat it, btw)
What is happening (animal rights movements) is not some new idea or revolution in moral thought.. it is merely the start of us applying ancient moral values in a more consistent way than we previously did.. most likely because previously it was a luxury we could not afford but now we can.

If animals eat animals,and people have been eating animals forever,and will continue to do so,why try to protect animals rights in that context.Couldn’t an anti-specieist understand mans relationship with animals,the same way he understands other inter-animal relationships.
I have already spelled this out in the previous posts above.
Sate..on the other hand,Yes!Of course we are more cognizant,and can make less “instinctual"choices…

No, because we decide what our relationships will be, within limits of survival. Other animals generally have no capacity to understand the ethical consequences of their actions nor the technology to provide alternatives even if they somehow did. We do, and we do.

Some researchers indicate some non-human primates in fact have some sort of moral reasoning. I must conclude that if this is true, and if these creatures are legally “persons” as in Spain for example.. then certainly some of them should be arrested for their misbehavior (for example, killing an infant after becoming socially dominate in order to produce its own heir). Somehow I don’t think anyone wants to follow this line of thought too far.

Ok then.Eating meat is unethical.End of argument.

VYAZMA,

Maybe I misunderstood you, but you seemed to be saying that Singer’s point was wrong because animals eat each other and humans evolved as omnivores. Is that not true? If that is what you were saying, than my “counterpoint” was that’s not a good reason for deciding what is right or wrong for the reasons I gave. If you had some other point that I missed, than what was it?

The reason I brought history into it is that you also seemd to say that using animals for work (ploughing, specifically) and wearing their fur was necessary historically for us to survive, and that seemed to be a point you were making to explain why Singer was wrong. Again, was this not what you meant?

As for “fringe” that’s juts your opinion. Anything that is not believed by the majority can be dismissed as “fringe” including the lack of religious belief that brings us both here. So what? The arguments for something are either good or bad, and their popularity has nothing to do with it. I happen to live in a place where lots of people are vegetarians, and it doesn’t seem fring to me, but either way it’s not an argument for or against what Singer is saying.

Is eating meat the “natural” order of things? Depends on what you mean. Is it parft of our evolutionary history and something our bodies are designed to do, sure? Is it the right thing to do? Not necessarily. That’s why again I don’t think you reference to what happens in nature is a good argument against it. Taking antibiotics and getting vaccinated are not “natural,“ but they’re a good thing. Rape is “natural,‘ but it’s a bad thing. All I’m saying is that what is done in nature or what we evolved to do is not a good reason for or against a particular choice, like eating meat or not eating it.

Ok then.Eating meat is unethical.End of argument.

Actually this conclusion does not follow from either the podcast or our discussion here. What I get is that how we treat animals is subject to moral argumentation and not exempt. There are good arguments eating meat is unethical in and of itself, but none have been advanced here.

I suppose this topic has a moral continuum as much any other. From eating plants to eating babies. We would all say (I hope) that the former is ok and the latter is not. We are looking to draw a line somewhere and we are finding it difficult because there are so many other factors thrown in. Singer argues that currently we use the species line to decide but if we believe in evolution and that we do not occupy a special place in the universe, the species line is an arbitrary one and we need to find another one. He suggests that we should not eat “beings with interests” as his line in the sand which, to me, seems like a more valid one. Actually, I think we already adhere to this one but it’s our perception of “beings with interests” that is off. We tend to anthropomorphize dogs and cats making the thought of eating them repulsive. In the same vein, I doubt we’d continue eating cows if they evolved to be as intelligent as we are.

My line in the sand, I suppose, has always been this skewed notion of “beings with interests” but I rationalized the of meat I eat (which is minimal - maybe once a week) based on the fact that well-raised meat is ok thinking that trading quality of life is a good trade for reduced longevity. I’ll have to give this one more thought but Singer has made a strong case…

Ok then.Eating meat is unethical.End of argument.

Actually this conclusion does not follow from either the podcast or our discussion here. What I get is that how we treat animals is subject to moral argumentation and not exempt. There are good arguments eating meat is unethical in and of itself, but none have been advanced here.

Then advance an actual opinion,[personal remark removed].Quit riding the rails!!

I suppose this topic has a moral continuum as much any other. From eating plants to eating babies. We would all say (I hope) that the former is ok and the latter is not. We are looking to draw a line somewhere and we are finding it difficult because there are so many other factors thrown in. Singer argues that currently we use the species line to decide but if we believe in evolution and that we do not occupy a special place in the universe, the species line is an arbitrary one and we need to find another one. He suggests that we should not eat “beings with interests” as his line in the sand which, to me, seems like a more valid one. Actually, I think we already adhere to this one but it’s our perception of “beings with interests” that is off. We tend to anthropomorphize dogs and cats making the thought of eating them repulsive. In the same vein, I doubt we’d continue eating cows if they evolved to be as intelligent as we are.

My line in the sand, I suppose, has always been this skewed notion of “beings with interests” but I rationalized the of meat I eat (which is minimal - maybe once a week) based on the fact that well-raised meat is ok thinking that trading quality of life is a good trade for reduced longevity. I’ll have to give this one more thought but Singer has made a strong case…

This is insight..it has foundations.Of course you needed to tell us how much meat you eat per week….

VYAZMA,

Maybe I misunderstood you, but you seemed to be saying that Singer’s point was wrong because animals eat each other and humans evolved as omnivores. Is that not true? If that is what you were saying, than my “counterpoint” was that’s not a good reason for deciding what is right or wrong for the reasons I gave. If you had some other point that I missed, than what was it?

The reason I brought history into it is that you also seemd to say that using animals for work (ploughing, specifically) and wearing their fur was necessary historically for us to survive, and that seemed to be a point you were making to explain why Singer was wrong. Again, was this not what you meant?

As for “fringe” that’s juts your opinion. Anything that is not believed by the majority can be dismissed as “fringe” including the lack of religious belief that brings us both here. So what? The arguments for something are either good or bad, and their popularity has nothing to do with it. I happen to live in a place where lots of people are vegetarians, and it doesn’t seem fring to me, but either way it’s not an argument for or against what Singer is saying.

Is eating meat the “natural” order of things? Depends on what you mean. Is it parft of our evolutionary history and something our bodies are designed to do, sure? Is it the right thing to do? Not necessarily. That’s why again I don’t think you reference to what happens in nature is a good argument against it. Taking antibiotics and getting vaccinated are not “natural,“ but they’re a good thing. Rape is “natural,‘ but it’s a bad thing. All I’m saying is that what is done in nature or what we evolved to do is not a good reason for or against a particular choice, like eating meat or not eating it.

Mckenz…I think me,you and Sate are all on the same page.I know we are.As too often happens on this forum,our thoughts become garbled.Your evolutionary proposals are wrong.Come on.Are you discounting everything you know as reality?
Especially you…you are a Doctor of Animal Medicine.Who pays you?The animals or the animal owners?

Ok then.Eating meat is unethical.End of argument.

Actually this conclusion does not follow from either the podcast or our discussion here. What I get is that how we treat animals is subject to moral argumentation and not exempt. There are good arguments eating meat is unethical in and of itself, but none have been advanced here.

Exactly, there is nothing inherently wrong with eating meat, but rather it is how the meat is grown and harvested that it morally reprehensible.

Here’s looking forward to the day when in vitro meat production ends factory farming. Maybe then I will be able to eat meat again.

Ok then.Eating meat is unethical.End of argument.

Actually this conclusion does not follow from either the podcast or our discussion here. What I get is that how we treat animals is subject to moral argumentation and not exempt. There are good arguments eating meat is unethical in and of itself, but none have been advanced here.

Exactly, there is nothing inherently wrong with eating meat, but rather it is how the meat is grown and harvested that it morally reprehensible.

Here’s looking forward to the day when in vitro meat production ends factory farming. Maybe then I will be able to eat meat again.

Yeah,of course the current method of meat providance is crazy.I agree.100%That has nothing to do with this discussion.Wherein people are trying to implant ethics into humankinds strivance to obtain proteins.

Eh! I don’t like meat to begin with, never have, but in vitro sounds even worse than the real thing.  Of course, I haven’t studied it much because I could care less about eating meat.  Even as a child, my mother had a hard time getting me to eat meat.  I just never cared for it.

Even so, I did enjoy listening to Peter Singer this week.  Great show.

VYAZMA,

So if we’re on the same page, what exactly are you saying? I’m just not getting it. You seem to think vegetarianism doesn’t make sense because we evolved to eat meat. I’ve already said why I don’t think that works, and I don’t see what you latest response has to do with anything. WHat have I said about evolution that is wrong? What does it matter who pays me?

Then advance an actual opinion,patronizer.Quit riding the rails!!

Moral disposition aside, perhaps you’ve had too much meat V =P
I’ve advanced several opinions; about moral continuums, about the irrelevancy of theistic input etc.., but what you want is probably this: There is nothing wrong with the practice of eating meat from domesticated animals provide said animals have a reasonably decent cruely-free life. If some want to be vegitarian in order to facilitate change, I can understand that. I do not make that choice because to me its a throwing the baby out with the bathwater type decision. Alternative solutions seem more practical, sound and likelier to succeed.

One more opinion I’d like to advance- Singer oddly calls out humanists for their lack of veganism and presumes the cause is that they are insufficiently divorced from theism. This is bizarre and presumptuous.. as if the humanists can’t possibly have their own ethical position and instead must be guided by vestiges of Christianity (even ones who were never Christian..?).

VYAZMA,

So if we’re on the same page, what exactly are you saying? I’m just not getting it. You seem to think vegetarianism doesn’t make sense because we evolved to eat meat. I’ve already said why I don’t think that works, and I don’t see what you latest response has to do with anything. WHat have I said about evolution that is wrong? What does it matter who pays me?

I’ve said everything I have to say.Please provide an actual argument where it can be posited that eating meat,or using animals is unethical.This argument has already been borne out above.It deals with humankinds observance that animals are being mistreated,and animals are being subjugated.If this is the topic,then put forth a reason why animals shouldn’t be subjugated,right now!!We’ll forget the past Dozens of thousands of years.I am not a pro-active supporter of animal subjugation,I just can’t fathom how people can put aside the history,and put forth a new code of ethics,which is completely perpendicular to the history of animal evolution.Even if you succeed in this code of ethics,then what?
PLEASE EXPLAIN WHY ANIMALS SHOULD HAVE RIGHTS,WHY PEOPLE SHOULD STOP EATING ANIMALS.THEN PROVIDE ACTUAL ALTERNATIVES TO THE SYSTEM WHICH HAS EXISTED SINCE THE DAWN OF MAMMALS,THE DAWN OF VERTABRAES,OR EVEN FURTHER BACK.

I guess this debate is more about killing animals than eating them because Singer would probably say it’s ok to eat things that die of natural causes.

Even when it comes to humanely raised animals, Singer would probably say (my apologies if I’m misrepresenting him here) it is not ethical to assume that the quality of an animal’s life is a sufficient trade off for killing it.

Then advance an actual opinion,patronizer.Quit riding the rails!!

Moral disposition aside, perhaps you’ve had too much meat V =P
I’ve advanced several opinions; about moral continuums, about the irrelevancy of theistic input etc.., but what you want is probably this: There is nothing wrong with the practice of eating meat from domesticated animals provide said animals have a reasonably decent cruely-free life. If some want to be vegitarian in order to facilitate change, I can understand that. I do not make that choice because to me its a throwing the baby out with the bathwater type decision. Alternative solutions seem more practical, sound and likelier to succeed.

One more opinion I’d like to advance- Singer oddly calls out humanists for their lack of veganism and presumes the cause is that they are insufficiently divorced from theism. This is bizarre and presumptuous.. as if the humanists can’t possibly have their own ethical position and instead must be guided by vestiges of Christianity (even ones who were never Christian..?).

Well then,advance your moral continuum.More power to you.

I guess this debate is more about killing animals than eating them because Singer would probably say it’s ok to eat things that die of natural causes.

Even when it comes to humanely raised animals, Singer would probably say (my apologies if I’m misrepresenting him here) it is not ethical to assume that the quality of an animal’s life is a sufficient trade off for killing it.

Ok then put this in front of the massive history of animals quest for food.Now,we have decided this was the wrong path.If this was the wrong path-then what?Now we know we were wrong.Fix it.Please.Posit an idea.

PLEASE EXPLAIN WHY ANIMALS SHOULD HAVE RIGHTS,WHY PEOPLE SHOULD STOP EATING ANIMALS.THEN PROVIDE ACTUAL ALTERNATIVES TO THE SYSTEM WHICH HAS EXISTED SINCE THE DAWN OF MAMMALS,THE DAWN OF VERTABRAES,OR EVEN FURTHER BACK.

In Peter Singer’s world, lions and tigers and bears (oh,my….!) would ALL be vegetarians too!

After reviewing my comments concerning Sate’s posts I realize I was off topic and emotional.Sorry for any disruptions.

VYAZMA.

The argument here is that we know through evolution that humans do not occupy a special place in the universe. Therefore simply saying we can kill anything non-human for consumption is a biased position. You are arguing that eating meat is part of our evolution and therefore should continue to be so. Philosophers call this the naturalistic phallacy, that what is ought to be and it has been pointed out by others in this discussion to not be a sound basis for any system of ethics.

Singer argues that, yes humans have always eaten meat BUT we have sufficient knowledge today to understand that animals have interests and should not be deprived of their lives simply for our consumption. Singer is not arguing that we should never have started eating meat but he is arguing that we can and should now stop this practice.

Sorry. I meant to make it clear that I’m not saying eating meat is necessarily wrong, just that the argument you have used is not a good one.

VYAZMA.

The argument here is that we know through evolution that humans do not occupy a special place in the universe. Therefore simply saying we can kill anything non-human for consumption is a biased position. You are arguing that eating meat is part of our evolution and therefore should continue to be so. Philosophers call this the naturalistic phallacy, that what is ought to be and it has been pointed out by others in this discussion to not be a sound basis for any system of ethics.

Singer argues that, yes humans have always eaten meat BUT we have sufficient knowledge today to understand that animals have interests and should not be deprived of their lives simply for our consumption. Singer is not arguing that we should never have started eating meat but he is arguing that we can and should now stop this practice.

Jerbreck,then kindly explain to me how,through a system of ethics we can introduce this newfound realization of animal rights.

Jerbreck,then kindly explain to me how,through a system of ethics we can introduce this newfound realization of animal rights.

We can start by explaining to the lion why s/he should not eat the lamb!

Also,as I have said before,this is no longer an argument about animals,this is an argument about who has the best argumentative skills.Which I do not.I am still waiting on a reversal of my “Patronizer"comment.

Jerbreck,then kindly explain to me how,through a system of ethics we can introduce this newfound realization of animal rights.

We can start by explaining to the lion why s/he should not eat the lamb!

Peace out Asanta!!

If you’re asking how to make people follow this ethics, your guess is as good as mine. But even if there is no way of making people follow this ethics, which I don’t agree with, that is not an argument against it.

Also,as I have said before,this is no longer an argument about animals,this is an argument about who has the best argumentative skills.Which I do not.I am still waiting on a reversal of my “Patronizer"comment.

Hopefully this remains a discussion, where the truth is favoured, rather than a debate, where debating skills are favoured.

Also,as I have said before,this is no longer an argument about animals,this is an argument about who has the best argumentative skills.Which I do not.I am still waiting on a reversal of my “Patronizer"comment.

Hopefully this remains a discussion, where the truth is favoured, rather than a debate, where debating skills are favoured.

Wise words Jerbeck,there is no truth here though.Only peoples interpretations of ethics.Nonetheless,good points of wisdom.Discussion is the Keystone.This is one of many instances where people on this forum all have a common ground,essentially,but get lost in splitting the hairs of semantics.

I don’t think ethics can be interpreted/defined universally, esp when it comes to the food one eats, for we all relate to the world around us differently and as individuals. Even the words we use to explain the why and wherefore can have different meanings and/or connotations for different people.  Thus no consenses can be reached very easily, esp when one or more people in the discussion can’t agree on even one thing.

VYAZMA,

You’re cheating!  

You can’t just say that you base your position on evolution and nature, ignore my explanations why this isn’t a good reason to make a decision about eating meat, and then claim that we’re spliting hairs or that it’s all about debating skills rather than substance. The substance of my point is simple, and you’re still ignoring it: We evolved to rape one another and to kill one another but we have used our brains to decide that these are bad things and we shouldn’t do them despite being predisposed to. We evolved to eat meat, but there’s no reason why this means we have to do it forever and not think about it or decide to change our behavior. That’s what our brains are for.

Instead of responding to what others are saying, you keep challenging them to provide a complete system of ethics to justify vegatarianism. I would say there’s a lot of that already out there, and Singer is a good place to start if you’re interested, but asking us to do that, in loud all caps, is just avoiding dealing with the things we’ve already said. Still, it seems like we’re talking in circles here, so I’ll try and make a few points that maybe will move the discussion forward.

You seem to accept the idea that causing animals to suffer unecessarily is wrong. I wonder why, since animals hurt each other all the time, and we evolved to hurt other creatures, but anyway it’s a start. Many vegetarians choose not to eat meat because doing so supports an industrial agricultural system that causes pain just for the sake of economic efficiency even when it is avoidable, and it sounds like that makes sense to you, though I imagine you’d howl if anyone tried to tell you you should do the same.

The further question, then is “is there any reason not to kill and eat an animal if you could do so in a way that doesn’t cause any pain?“ Singer would probably say that, as far as the animal is concerned, they have an “interest” in staying alive just as much in avoiding pain, and it doesn’t make any sense to say causing pain is wrong but causing death is ok. If the interests of animals matter at all, then we have to take all of them seriously. Again, the fact that animals kill and eat each other is irrelevant. They don’t have the ability to think about it, so there isn’t any moral issue. We do have the ability to look at them and think, “Hmm, they seem to try really hard to stay alive, so maybe they have an interest in living and maybe killing them isn’t such a good thing.“ No reason we shouldn’t use our brains to think about this one and try and figure it out.

As for alternatives, lots of people don’t eat meat and their lives go on just fine, so there’s really no argument that we have to do so. We do it because we’re used to it and we enjoy it. Fair enough, but pretty weak reasons set against the nasty things we do to make meat.

Anyway, as I said there are long books written about the ethics of eating meat, and I’m not going to try and reproduce them here. If you really are interested in why people think it’s not right to do so, then we can look at specific arguments and see what we think. I sort of get the feeling you just think that vegetarianism is stupid and aren’t really interested in why people would choose it, in which case we’re wasting our time here, but maybe I’m wrong.

You know I doubt Brennen, as a vet, can deny that animals feel pain and even cry in their own way they are hurting.  I know he is against anthropomorphazing animals, but the truth is, they do feel pain.  IF they don’t, why do we have sedatives and pain killers for our pets?  I don’t think a day goes by in which he looks into a sick animals eyes and feels for them as he takes note of their discomfort.  There is something there that can’t be put into human words, except that we know they are ill and don’t feel like themselves.

Now place that into slaughter houses and alike or even those seals they frightfully kill for sport.  I don’t believe for a minute those animals who go to the slaughter houses don’t sense something is wrong and something bad is about to happen, though they can’t put it in those words, just that their lives are in danger and they can’t do anything about it.  Those seals who are unmercifully killed do feel something physical in the process of the barbaric killing and have no comprehension why it is happening.  What about the wolves that are shot from aerial planes?  Do they not feel the pain of the bullet that is lodged in their rear?  If not, why do they fight it?

Yes, that is emotion… empathy to be exact, but it seems, IMO, to be illogical not take on their feelings of pain and discomfort into consideration in order to do something for them.  I would question any vet who did not take concern about the physical discomfort of his/her patient could be feeling, humanizingly perceived or not.  Add to that, animals do have a desire to stay alive, for if they did not, why would they fight back against a perceived threat?  That is one instinct that cannot be denied about any animal- four-legged or two-legged.

IF you, VYAZMA, saw and knew exactly what animals went through before they landed on your plate, would you be so apt to question why many vegetarians and vegans don’t like meat?  I lived on a farm for a few years of my childhood.  I know what happens to them and I think the funniest thing that happened was when my mother chopped a head off a chicken and it ran headless into the woods.  She didn’t get any chicken that night.  The second funny thing was that we had three black angus bull calves- two nursed and one didn’t.  She got one to nurse off of Old Bossy, but the other of the two who were left, she could not get him to nurse.  At the time I knew their names and who was who, for I had not only bottled fed them, but I also got into the pen and played with them often.  I laughed and told her she had the wrong calf.  I got to know them well even though all three looked alike to the untrained eye.  Sadly, they were turned into veal and Old Bossy became jello.  :(  BTW, I also played with the chickens and can honestly say, not too many people can hold chickens like they were pets, but I did and I also had a runt pig that I named Wilber (yes from Charlotte’s Web and no, he wasn’t slaughtered, the dog that was 1/2 wolf that we had killed him and my mother shot him because he tasted pig etc etc)

My grandfather and his brother would take me out in the woods for walks and on occassion I got to look everything from a deer to a wolf in the eyes until they went on their way.  It was truly numinous (see Webster’s definition #3) and since they seemed to deduce that we were of no threat to them, they did us no harm. The trick was to stand very still and just watch with our eyes or at least that was what I was told to do and it worked.  My grandfather nor his brother carried any weapons on these jaunts and we were safe.  I can’t think of anything more awe inspiring than that and there was something about all the animals we saw on these walks that was far better than any church service my grandparents or my mother would make me attend.  My grandfather’s brother was an atheist and felt close to nature on these walks also.

It seems few people have any form of intimate relationship with animals, that they take little empathy with them or if they do raise animals they make them so devoid of emotions concerning those animals, that they have no compassion for them.  So, yes, the reasons are both rational and emotional.  I don’t think the two can be separated when it comes to life, no matter the species, but one has to be willing to see other species as life in order to comprehend the other person and sometimes their use of words too.  No, it is not religious, but could sound religious because life of any sort can be very inspiring and trigger the very same chemical reactions in the brain, esp if the other doesn’t understand the person who is trying to explain their reasons for being a vegetarian or vegan.  Sometimes there aren’t words to explain either, but it doesn’t mean it is any less or more rational than the reasons people do eat meat.  It’s just part of being human and part being human also includes seeing life as being precious, not matter the species (for me it does at least).  It’s what makes life worth living, even if it is nothing more than an appeal to the aesthetic senses.

Brennen is probably right, though, until one is ready to at least understand the other, it is a waste of time to explain.  Which means I am just wasting internet space trying to explain anything more than just saying, “I don’t like meat”.

VYAZMA,

Anyway, as I said there are long books written about the ethics of eating meat, and I’m not going to try and reproduce them here. If you really are interested in why people think it’s not right to do so, then we can look at specific arguments and see what we think. I sort of get the feeling you just think that vegetarianism is stupid and aren’t really interested in why people would choose it, in which case we’re wasting our time here, but maybe I’m wrong.

This only shows me that you don’t read posts thoroughly,if at all.That’s OK,your busy,and I wouldn’t want to read through all this either.I’ve already made all my points,seeing as how you haven’t read them,I’m not going to carry on with this.
I also requested that you reconsider your editing of my “patronizer"comment.I consider this unfounded.I gave supporting evidence as to my descriptive comment,and “patronizer"isn’t anything offensive.
Again,please I don’t want to carry-on with this argument.It deals with possible defects in the “natural fallacy”.This is an argument that is only open to subjective semantics.

*sigh*

VYAZMA<

I’ve read every post of yours in this thread. Every single word. You might at least try to believe that I could disagree with you, or even misunderstand what you’re saying, without just assuming I haven’t been paying attention. You made some points, I suggested they were wrong, and you haven’t answered any of my objections except with very emotional-sounding outbursts and irrelevancies. I agree that pursing the discussion is pointless, but I’m really sorry that we couldn’t find a way to have a better, more purposeful discussion.

In official mode, I have reviewed the posts you suggested, and I don’t see anything that appears to violate the rules of the forum. I consider your addressing another member as “patronizer” a personal remark that isn’t conducive to polite, civil debate. If you feel in the future another member has addressed you in a way that violates the forum guidelines, a better reaction would be to privately call the attention of the moderators to this rather than responding to the other member publically

I eat meat, I wear animal-derived products, I enjoy it a lot and I am fully aware of how it is harvested, I listened to this interview and here is what I have to say:

I have been turned off by the arguments for vegetarianism because of a certain arrogance; “I do not participate in such acts, therefore I am more conscious than you”.
I have had to defend my atheism, I have had to defend my friends’ homosexuality, I had to defend myself back when I smoked and certainly I don’t feel I have to defend my choice of lifestyle and/or stave off those who want me to feel guilty for it.
I am fully aware of the process and the implications, yet I choose to continue consuming animal products, and be sure that when meat is harvested in a laboratory I will still be looking for the real things. (I never drink decaf or artificial sweeteners, but that’s another story)

Yet I don’t plan to disrespect your choices.

Yet I don’t plan to disrespect your choices.

You mean you won’t hate me because I am beautiful? 

Certainly, some vegetarians can be self-righteous and annoying, and that’s never helpful. But how is it arrogant to say, “I’ve thought about this and decided it’s not a good thing?“ Saying that you want to be free to do whatever you want without criticism doesn’t really answer any of the actual ethical issues being discussed here. And realistically, if we want a world in which we are all free to think and say what we like, we have to have a world in which people are free to criticize the ideas others believe in. Religious people don’t like atheists to say God isn’t real, but should we not say that because it’s “disrespectful?“ Do you have any opinions on the actual issues Singer raised, or is your interest only in not being challenged for the choices you make?

Augusto. I think you bring up some important points.

You’re, of course, entitled to continue eating meat and consciously endorse industrial farming but you can’t expect people to respect your choice. Vegetarians are unecessarily smug sometimes when they approach people who aren’t as well versed on the issue as they are and that, inevitably, is not beneficial to their cause. But is the pretentious attitudes of some college hippies any reason for animals to suffer? The animals did not ask the hippies to be pretentious on their behalf. I know this isn’t easy, but ideas should be evaluated independent of the attitudes of those who are presenting them. I’m not saying eating meat is wrong, just that you judge this issue on the facts, not on the people presenting them.

Also, do you think it’s wise to shut yourself off completely from arguments on this issue? Despite the fact that you haven’t forwarded any arguments why you think it’s ethical to eat meat (there are arguments), you are suggesting that nothing will change your mind about this issue. I mean this with all due respect, but your dedication to meat eating sounds somewhat religious.

Can the “interests” argument be applied to non-animals? I submit that Singer puts forth the following (in bold then I expound a bit):

Speciesism is immoral and akin to racism and other nasty -isms
  -the term species applies to all living things, not just animals (the living things in our particular group)
Creatures with interests should be taken into moral consideration
Plants and other life forms certainly have “interests”. The parser for their interests is DNA instead of a nervous system by why does that matter? The reason that herbivores and omnivores tend to have relatively huge livers is that plants poison themselves in an effort to avoid being eaten. Clearly, the plants are exerting some sort of will to survive. Plants respond to their environment to preserve their lives, some grow or actually move toward the sunlight. How can one argue an animal has interests but a plant does not? Because it is not like us?

Some in this very forum have argued that creating domesticated animals for our use/entertainment/companionship is hideous and immoral because we are using them; because they are not allowed a natural life. Why is it different for domesticated plants? Most familiar crops are dramatically disfigured versions of anything “natural” and certainly plants don’t seem to prefer living in tiny regimented patches, doused with chemicals, then destroyed. If we compared a vineyard to a farm, we’d see the same attitude taken toward the residents. Vitners force the plants to fit a small, constrained frame. parts of the plant unlikely to produce the best grapes are hacked off (like beaks and horns) so that nutrients go to the favourable parts instead.

I know some will refute this reason with bits about capacity for suffering (I concur- plants can not feel pain, that is not part of my argument) and about sentience. Again I speak to interests and I would answer that sentience is just a animalist bias used to put animals on a higher moral plane than other creatures as if somehow superior.. much like racism etc..,

This post is absolutely serious, however mad it seems keep in mind vegitarianism sounded equally mad to our progenitors just a couple generations down. As I observed in the other animal rights thread.. however progessive and “fringe” you believe yourself to be.. it is nearly certain your great great great grandchildren will be shocked by the barbarity of your views.

I have to agree on some of the things Augusto said and it is one reason I don’t care much for what PETA does.  Sometimes, I think, even they do some stupid things, as well as become arrogant, sometimes even cruel, if not hateful.  I think they had one ad in which they were mean to obese people.  Sometimes it isn’t what they eat that makes them obese.  Sometimes it’s meds and/or a medical condition they have, in which case PETA was being very rude and obnoxious, yet they keep asking me to support them in what they do.  Um…  No, I rather support WWF, ASPCA, and alike organizations than a group that can sometimes be cruel to others.

Certainly, any philosophical position can be carried to ridiculous extremes. Epistemilogical uncertainty becomes solipsism, moral relativism becomes nihilism, and Xeno’s arrow never reaches its target. One could extend the “interests” argument to anything, even non-living matter. Perhaps someday plants will be considered worthy of moral consideration in a way that they almost never are today. Personally FWIW (which isn’t much), I tend to focus on suffering and behavioral measures of well-being when deciding how seriously to take the interests of another lviing thing. This does privilege animals in a way that is no more arbitrary than any moral stance and at least rational and consistent. But that’s just my opinion.

I have to agree on some of the things Augusto said and it is one reason I don’t care much for what PETA does.  Sometimes, I think, even they do some stupid things, as well as become arrogant, sometimes even cruel, if not hateful.

Agreed. I would add that PETA has been known to sponsor domestic terrorists, convicted arsonists etc.., however much I don’t agree with you I don’t get to burn your house down. There is a healthy dose of hypocrisy as well.. high ranking PETA members gladly use medical treatments made possible by animal-based research.
The worst part is that the extreme and poor behavior of groups like PETA actually pushes people away from important causes. Much like the observation made by Pinker and others that to this very day the majority of women will agree with every tenet of feminism but far fewer will call themselves feminists. That’s because radical feminists of the 60s-today poisoned the well. ALF, PETA and others are making animal rights seem like the domain of radical hypocritical nutjobs which of course it is not.

Since I’m still on dial-up, I can’t listen to the podcasts, so I always skip this part of the forum.  However, I heard about this thread and had to see what was going on.

I’m fascinated by how such intelligent and erudite people can waste so much time nit-picking.  I don’t think history is of much importance here.  I also don’t think concern with the pain of the animals is germane.  It if were, vegetarians would refuse to take any medications which resulted, during their development, in esearch on animals during which they were “sacrificed” for examination. 

If we are to avoid causing pain to any animal, but desire protein from animal soruces, I suppose we could become, as was mentioned earlier, carrion eaters since it should be ok to eat animals that died naturally.  However, that leads to the next step:  should we also eat dead cats, dogs, and humans?

As I see it, it’s a personal choice.  For example, at the annual party of the local Democratic Club in January, I’ve committed to make a large pot of my famous mulligatawny.  However, since a fair number of people there are vegetarians or vegans, just prior to finishing it, I’ll separate it into two serving containers, add chicken bouillon and chicken white meat to one, and vegetable bouillon and fried tofu to the other.  They’‘ll taste just about the same, have about the same nutritional value, but satisfy the “ethics” of the vegans and the “desires” of the omnivores. 

Occam
Wordpad

Ok then.Eating meat is unethical.End of argument.

This is where I ended my interests-post #14.Up to that point.I was putting forth arguments against this so called “natural fallacy”.
In otherwords-where does ethics or morality meet biology?
Where does ethics or morality meet evolution?
Where does ethics or morality meet traditional worldwide methods of food production?
Somehow people began construing my comments as indifferent to animals,or indifferent to peoples values.This couldn’t be further from the truth.

Hi I am new here.  I very often feel that animals we r going to eat really should get a better life because we eat them.  That may shock some but I am a omnivore… sorry to the cows and chickens. :( That being the case I do feel that the animal should have a good life before we kill it and eat it.  I decided to write thought, because I wanted to mention that I am proud to see California make a step in the right direction.  Passing a proposition to treat farmed and ranched animals much better during life, before consumption.  I was wondering if anyone else thought this proposition was going to help?

I have to agree on some of the things Augusto said and it is one reason I don’t care much for what PETA does.  Sometimes, I think, even they do some stupid things, as well as become arrogant, sometimes even cruel, if not hateful.

Agreed. I would add that PETA has been known to sponsor domestic terrorists, convicted arsonists etc.., however much I don’t agree with you I don’t get to burn your house down. There is a healthy dose of hypocrisy as well.. high ranking PETA members gladly use medical treatments made possible by animal-based research.
The worst part is that the extreme and poor behavior of groups like PETA actually pushes people away from important causes. Much like the observation made by Pinker and others that to this very day the majority of women will agree with every tenet of feminism but far fewer will call themselves feminists. That’s because radical feminists of the 60s-today poisoned the well. ALF, PETA and others are making animal rights seem like the domain of radical hypocritical nutjobs which of course it is not.

Precisely.  They are as bad as those anti-abortionists who blow up abortion clinics.  What is the logic in that?  They are against killing, yet they kill the pregnant mother, the nurses, the doctors, receptionists, counselors, etc with one single bomb.  They kill many in the fight to save the acorn?  What sense does that make?  PETA is not much different in their logic more often than not.

Now here is the other thing about PETA- they would even object to a man like my grandfather, who hunted in order to feed his family.  He killed no more than was needed and the whole animal was used in some manner, whenever possible.  He objected to poachers strongly though, but he was not beyond feeding his family. He also lived in the boonies too, which makes a difference when it comes to going to the store in the winter.  One truly lives off the land when they live miles away from civilization.  Killing a rabbit to feed his family is nothing compared to infecting apes with HIV.  However, PETA would make a big to do about even that form of killing animals, even though it is a matter of survival.  However, there is a difference between hunting rabbit or even wild turkey for survival and raising them on modern day farms for slaughter.  I take no issue with what my grandfather did, even though I don’t like meat.  The difference is, I did not live near the Arkansas border, but rather in the city, where grocery stores are plentiful.  IF I had lived out in what my grandfather called “God’s Country” AKA non-civilization, I don’t know if I would have had such a disliking of meat.  I never had to survive off the land, but he didn’t send any of the animals he owned off to slaughter either.  He did it all himself, IF he used them for food at all.  He mostly hunted for meat and as I said, only killed what was needed, which means he would come home with only one rabbit or one deer or wild turkey.  Nothing more and what was not eaten in one meal, my grandmother froze for another.

PETA would probably rather see people who live out in No Man’s Land starve to death than survive on what is available.  One can can vegetables, make preserves, and alike, but they can’t have fresh veggies year around and it isn’t necessarily enough to live on through the winter, esp if beans and alike don’t produce a good harvest.  If you can’t drive out to the nearest town 100 miles away when there is a thick blanket of snow on the dirt rock road, then you have to trudge out on foot into the woods to find food, like it or not.  I’d like to see PETA survive in those conditions.  I don’t think they would make it unless they were willing to lower their standards a little, just enough to survive at least.  I doubt they will find edible berries in the dead of an Ozark winter.  What are they going to do?  Give in and kill Thumper in order to live or die of starvation?  sigh.  Killing Thumper is not my first choice, but I probably would end up giving in and sucking up the bad taste eventually.  It’s only human nature when it comes to survival.  PETA people would probably chose death over reason and logic.  Extremism does that, but when push came to shove, they might not even know what they would do, until they came face to face with it.  Even I can’t say for certain what I would do, except I would do what I needed to survive.

That’s because radical feminists of the 60s-today poisoned the well.

No, women in the 60s were fighting for their rights. Before the 60s a woman:

could not have credit in her own name. If she got a divorce, she had absolutely no credit history.
there were no female police officers, women could only do the lesser paid office work, and even there, was paid less than her male counterpart.
culture dictated what job you were able to get, not ability. I had a brilliant engineering professor who was able to get a lot farther than she would have otherwise, because she used her nickname ‘Andy’ on all of her applications. Even then TRW turned her down for a job, they had previously offered her when they discovered ‘he’ was a ‘she’.
could not obtain birth control with out the assent of her husband.
a rape by your husband was not legally a rape, no matter how brutal, because you were husband and wife, and sex was his right.
domestic violence, no matter how brutal, was a family affair, between husband and wife in which the police would not interfere.

I could go on and on and on. The well was poisoned by the prevailing treatment of women in the 60s, and we had to fight to get it changed. Please find another excuse.

Ok then.Eating meat is unethical.End of argument.

This is where I ended my interests-post #14.Up to that point.I was putting forth arguments against this so called “natural fallacy”.
In otherwords-where does ethics or morality meet biology?
Where does ethics or morality meet evolution?
Where does ethics or morality meet traditional worldwide methods of food production?
Somehow people began construing my comments as indifferent to animals,or indifferent to peoples values.This couldn’t be further from the truth.

VYAZMA. I sort of feel where you’re coming from but I’m not sure you’re actually putting forth arguments against the natural fallacy.

The natural fallacy is assuming because something ‘is’ one way it ‘ought’ to be that way. All it’s saying is that because something ‘is’ is not a sufficient reason to say it ‘ought’ to be that way. There needs to be some supporting argument. As far as I can tell, and I apologize in advance if I mischaracterize what you’ve said or missed something, you are saying that because we evolved eating meat (the ‘is’) it is ethical for us to continue to do so (the ‘ought’). There needs to be another supporting argument.

Also, I think that before we ask ‘where do ethics meet evolution’ we should ask ‘why should evolution meet ethics’? My answer is they shouldn’t because evolution is not a moral process.

That’s because radical feminists of the 60s-today poisoned the well.

No, women in the 60s were fighting for their rights. Before the 60s a woman:

asanta I think you misconstrued my point. I take exception not with people (men and women) who fought against the repression you cited but with groups and individuals who took the fight to absurd extremes.. those who for example say all sex is rape (of women) and no woman should be “subjugated” as a housewife even if that is what she wants.. that we need to make silly spelling changes like womyn etc.., maybe you merely question the chronology and I will cede the point as I am too lazy to research the details for the moment.

Occam,

Your post sounds a lot like you’re dismissing the debate as trivial because you don’t personally feel moved by the issue.

I also don’t think concern with the pain of the animals is germane.  It if were, vegetarians would refuse to take any medications which resulted, during their development, in esearch on animals during which they were “sacrificed” for examination

I think this is an oversimplification and sort of misses the point. People can have strongly held, well-founded ethical beliefs that they don’t adhere to perfectly, particularly when something like their health or life is at stake. The fact that people make use of products that required causing suffering to produce doesn’t mean suffering isn’t an important issue, it just means people are always going to adhere to the most extreme interpretation of an idea no matter what. That’s probably a good thing! Avoiding meat, which isn’t really necessary for health for most people but just soemthing we eat because of habit or for pleasure, can be a way of reducing the suffering one causes even if one doesn’t live in a Jainist bubble.

If we are to avoid causing pain to any animal, but desire protein from animal soruces, I suppose we could become, as was mentioned earlier, carrion eaters since it should be ok to eat animals that died naturally.  However, that leads to the next step:  should we also eat dead cats, dogs, and humans?

This isn’t, of course, the logical consequenc eof an ethical argument in favor of vegetarianism, just a reductio ad absurdum argument. We have a probably innate distaste for carrion because it is more likely to make us sick then fresh meat. For that matter, we developed the habit of cooking meat, and that is healthier than eating it raw, so now most of us prefer it that way. And companion animals or other humans make lousy food sources because we have a natural tendancy to avoid eating things that we have chosen to classify as persons or individuals in some sense. Still, some people name their cows and chickens and wouldn’t eat them and others eat dogs and humans. None of this really has anything to do with the ethics of vegetarianism vs omnivory.

As I see it, it’s a personal choice.

Well, of course it is, largely because most people in our society don’t feel strongly about the ethical issues and so view it as mostly an esthetic choice. As you pointed out, eating people who died naturally isn’t a choice, legally or ethically, because most people view the act as aborrhent. In practice, there often isn’t much more to ethics than how people feel about something, but I like to think discussions like this try at least to be about something more rational and substantive.

Quote Brennen:

Your post sounds a lot like you’re dismissing the debate as trivial because you don’t personally feel moved by the issue.

Your evaluation of my post was quite correct, so I shan’t continue in this thread.
Occam

Quote Brennen:

Your post sounds a lot like you’re dismissing the debate as trivial because you don’t personally feel moved by the issue.

Your evaluation of my post was quite correct, so I shan’t continue in this thread.
Occam

That’s the coward’s way out Occam!.. damn wish I’d thought of it.
hey just kidding, put down the mod hammer. Could I interest you in my doctrine of deliciousness… all the taste, none of the guilt…

Could I interest you in my doctrine of deliciousness… all the taste, none of the guilt…

All the taste, none of the guilt, and much unnecessary suffering. But you probably don’t care much about that, do you?

That’s because radical feminists of the 60s-today poisoned the well.

No, women in the 60s were fighting for their rights. Before the 60s a woman:

asanta I think you misconstrued my point. I take exception not with people (men and women) who fought against the repression you cited but with groups and individuals who took the fight to absurd extremes.. those who for example say all sex is rape (of women) and no woman should be “subjugated” as a housewife even if that is what she wants.. that we need to make silly spelling changes like womyn etc.., maybe you merely question the chronology and I will cede the point as I am too lazy to research the details for the moment.

<*sigh*>...As you know, there are cuckoos everywhere!

All the taste, none of the guilt, and much unnecessary suffering. But you probably don’t care much about that, do you?

Your depressing reminders are causing me unnecessary suffering. But you probably don’t care much about that, do you?

I’m not sure I heard the issue of animal experimentation with regards to cures for human diseases discussed. Anyone have any opinions regarding this subject?

I’m not sure I heard the issue of animal experimentation with regards to cures for human diseases discussed. Anyone have any opinions regarding this subject?

There was an article on this in a recent issue of Skeptical Inquirer. Available online HERE.

All the taste, none of the guilt, and much unnecessary suffering. But you probably don’t care much about that, do you?

Your depressing reminders are causing me unnecessary suffering. But you probably don’t care much about that, do you?

No, I don’t. Your “suffering”, compared to the real suffering of the animals, is pathetic.

There’s no question that animal experimentation has played a vital role in producing medical therapies. I think it is fair to ask and discuss the question if this is right or wrong, but anyone who argues that such experimentation is not necessary to improve human health is just plain mistaken. Again, I think this may be a bit different from the core issue of the thread regarding vegetarianism in that eating meat is not in any sense necessary for god health for most people, but it’s a point frequently made in such discussions.

Your depressing reminders are causing me unnecessary suffering. But you probably don’t care much about that, do you?

No, I don’t. Your “suffering”, compared to the real suffering of the animals, is pathetic.

Your comparison is unfair sir; animals have the luxury of not being able to understand you.
..but why be here failing to shame me, when you could be hurling red paint at someone’s leather shoes in front of Starbucks?

Ok guys, enough of the personal remarks. I know this is an issue many of us take seriously enough to have strong feelings about, but personal sniping doesn’t further the discussion. Thank you.

... I think it is fair to ask and discuss the question if this is right or wrong, but anyone who argues that such experimentation is not necessary to improve human health is just plain mistaken.

I may quote you on that, thanks.

Again, I think this may be a bit different from the core issue of the thread regarding vegetarianism in that eating meat is not in any sense necessary for good health for most people, but it’s a point frequently made in such discussions.

Very little is “necessary” to stay alive.. what we eat also needs to be practical for the masses and to some degree contribute to and not detract from quality of life. That said, there is research the vegitarian diet can have averse health effects.
This blog discusses a pregnancy-related study. Anecdotally I’ve heard doctors advise patients in recovery of serious trauma to eat meat as part of recovery.
Those issues aside, we are plainly biologically omnivores and are metabolitcally optimized for that diet. Ironically some of the most synethic-phobic “whole foods” people have the most contrived, unnatural diet. Detractors point to heart disease and cholesterol etc as evidence of the danger of meats but this only reinforces my point- we evolved a taste for meat because it was a scarce nutritional goldmine. Our modern meat-eating diet ignores this truth which leads to devastating health problems as we over-indulge. The point is when we ignore the design of our evolved metabolism and think we can get away with it without consequence, we are being naive.

Sate,
Again, I think you’re flirting with the naturalistic fallacy. The fact that humans evolved eating some amount of meat doesn’t necessarily mean doing so is healthy or nutritionally optimal. And anyway, it’s difficult to guess how much meat our ancestors really ate, and the anthropologists have swung back and forth on the subject. Obviously, in moderation it is not harmful at all, but that isn’t really a very compelling argument for it from a nutrition standpoint. There are numerous studies illustrating that a vegetarian diet (and even a vegan diet, thoguh it’s more work) can meat [pun not originally intended, but I liked it so I left it] all human nutritional needs at all life stages, and the NIH has lots of information on this. So if you wish to counter the ethical concerns about eating meat with some nutritional or health argument, I don’t agree that is pursuasive.

As for “quality of life,“ that’s subjective. I don’t miss meat a bit, some people do. But there is nothing intrinsically necessary to quality of life in eating it; this is more a matter of habit, culture, personal preference and so on.

As for “practical for the masses,“ there’s very good evidence that far more people can be fed more cheaply and with more environmental sustainability on a diet of little or no meat. Due to the loss of calories at each step up the ladder from plant to herbivore to carnivore to saprophyte, more land and fossil fuel energy and fertilizer and so on is needed to produce adequate nutrition from animal sources than from plant sources.

Well said McKenzie. I for one am considering cutting meat out completely as a result of this podcast and discussion. Singer is very persuasive.

Sate, Again, I think you’re flirting with the naturalistic fallacy. The fact that humans evolved eating some amount of meat doesn’t necessarily mean doing so is healthy or nutritionally optimal…

Actually the fact that we evolved eating meat does mean that doing so is healthy. I’m not sure what nutritional health could even mean if you subtract from the equation “eating what it has been biologically constructed to eat” the evidence being incisors, meat-specific enzymes and the general need for the 20-some amino acids which are only found alltogether in meat (and a few hardly found anywhere else, particularly in the ancient world). If evolution has no bearing on diet then I suppose deer can eat tuna and baleen whales can have some tofu.. except that they can’t. Being omnivores, and clever ones, we can get around eating meat of course but it seems, not easily.. not without problems.

As for “practical for the masses,“ there’s very good evidence that far more people can be fed more cheaply and with more environmental sustainability on a diet of little or no meat. Due to the loss of calories at each step up the ladder from plant to herbivore to carnivore to saprophyte, more land and fossil fuel energy and fertilizer and so on is needed to produce adequate nutrition from animal sources than from plant sources.

This invokes a bit of a paradox. A survey of human societies will show tremendous ingenuity at maximizing economic output with available resources. Taken at face value, the cost per land per calorie equation coupled with the “eat meating is arbitrary preference” from above means that eating meat should have completely gone away for practical and economic reasons ages ago.. its wasteful and expensive. But it hasn’t- not even in the poorest countries (though they do consume much less meat of course). Part of the answer to this is that animals provide steady sources of energy (grain’s greater caloric base doesnt help when you need to mill it) and materials such as what ya might need to make clothes out of. Another part is that meat/milk/eggs are a one stop shop at least for keeping you alive and energized. A vegan diet is possible except that you need a much wider variety of sources and not all of those will grow in your local climate which means importation, storage, fossil fuels etc.., reducing the touted economic benefit of plants. Meat also has the energy density benefit in the final product. Grain might be more efficient, but it is much less energy pound for pound. This again reduces the economic advantage as transportation and storage are not free. We the rich west can afford to do whatever we prefer to but not everyone can, yet.
Finally my observation merely as joe-sixpack american is that eating vegitarian or vegan is clearly more costly for me. Assuming your facts are right it should be cheaper right? much cheaper. it isn’t. I don’t know precisely why.. but it isn’t.. to say nothing of what the Whole Foods store wants to charge you.

Sate.

Meat may be healthy but it is also replaceable which brings the evolution argument back to the natural fallacy. I agree that eating vegan may be costly but eating vegetarian can be done for cheap. Regardless, things can be simultaneously ethical and expensive.

I’m sure you’re aware that not everything that persists in human societies is practical and economic…ahem…religion?

I agree that meat is be difficult ways with. I did once and came back to it and may go back to being vegetarian again one day. I’m holding out hope that in vitro meat becomes commercially viable. That would be the east way out.

You are confusing nutrients with foods. We have certain nutrient requirements, which we have evolved, and these have minima, maxima, and optima. The source of individual nutrients is irrelevant. An amino acid is an amino acid whether it comes from beef or beans. While animal products (not only meat) are a convenient source of essential amino acids, these are not nearly as difficult to get from a meatless diet as you seem to think. And meat is also a convenient source of parasites and bacterial pathogens if not carefully handled and prepared. So the notion that it is intrinsically healthier to eat meat than to not eat it is inaccurate. Certainly, it is better to eat meat than to eat a diet deficient in amino acids or other essential nutrients, but that’s not the choice those of us in most of the modern world face. I work with obligate carnivores (cats), and I promise you that unlike them we have not evolved to require meat in our diet.

The whole “If evolution has no bearing…“ comment is just a strawman.

The history of domestication of animals for food is a complex and interesting one. There are circumstances in which pastoralism is necessary for survival. Primarily, this is in areas where the vegetation the environment supports cannot be used as food by humans (e.g. grass) but can be transformed into usable nutrition (meat, milk, etc) by animals. However, in other circumstances, meat is unecessary as all nutrient needs can be met by locally produced plant sources. The persistence of meat as a common food source doesn’t mean it is ideal or even necessary. There’s no paradox unless you believe people naturally gravitate to the most efficient economic and social system, and if you do well then we’re arguing about Libertarianism and I’d just as soon spend a month at a Bible retreat in Arkansas.  We often maintain cultural practices long after they have outlived any rational utility. We even adopt practices that have none in the first place. Some people only eat certain kinds of meat, don’t mix meat and dairy, only eat meat from animals killed in prescribed ways, and all of these are inefficient or unecessary cultural practices related to food that are preserved for a variety of reasons. The existence of a practice doesn’t imply it is the most efficient practice under current circumstances.

I personally find eating without meat very cheap, so our individual experiences in this regard differ and they are both meaningless anecdote anyway. Economies of scale and intensive industrial approaches make meat pretty cheap to produce (which is the genesis of most of the husbandry practices many of us find unecessarily cruel), but this is not intrinsically a quality of meat as a food. Cows used to be (and in some places still are), expensive, valued, hard to come by items. Grain may be less nutrient dense, but it is cheaper to produce, store, and transport, and the net effect is still less money and energy per calorie. I don’t have a ready set of references, but I have previously looked at analyses of the economic and environmental costs of meat and non-meat diets, and I don’t believe you are correct in terms of these. Still, we’ll have to disagree on principle unless one of us, or someone else, has time to dig up some actual data and analysis on the subject.

Finally, let’s not forget that we are primarily interested here in the ethical issues of eating meat. You appear to be trying to counter any ethical arguments against meat b y claiming that it is necessary for health, natural for us to eat which you seem to think has some relevance, more economically efficient, and so on. I don’t agree so far with the details of those points, but I also am not convinced they are all relevant to the ethical issues. Necessity certainly would be. Economic efficiency less so, and what is “natural” largely meaningless.

Ok then.Eating meat is unethical.End of argument.

This is where I ended my interests-post #14.Up to that point.I was putting forth arguments against this so called “natural fallacy”.
In otherwords-where does ethics or morality meet biology?
Where does ethics or morality meet evolution?
Where does ethics or morality meet traditional worldwide methods of food production?
Somehow people began construing my comments as indifferent to animals,or indifferent to peoples values.This couldn’t be further from the truth.

VYAZMA. I sort of feel where you’re coming from but I’m not sure you’re actually putting forth arguments against the natural fallacy.

The natural fallacy is assuming because something ‘is’ one way it ‘ought’ to be that way. All it’s saying is that because something ‘is’ is not a sufficient reason to say it ‘ought’ to be that way. There needs to be some supporting argument. As far as I can tell, and I apologize in advance if I mischaracterize what you’ve said or missed something, you are saying that because we evolved eating meat (the ‘is’) it is ethical for us to continue to do so (the ‘ought’). There needs to be another supporting argument.

Also, I think that before we ask ‘where do ethics meet evolution’ we should ask ‘why should evolution meet ethics’? My answer is they shouldn’t because evolution is not a moral process.

Why should evolution meet ethics?Good question.I agree,it shouldn’t.And the reason we eat meat,and tame animals,and make animals work for us,is due to evolution.Can someone today,or 100 years ago feel bad for the animals,and campaign for their better treatmentYes,and I hope people do.If we can make clothes out of vegetable fiber,then why make it out of animal hides.Except,there is alot of leftover animal hides and feathers from the meat industry.Might as well use them.Whatever reason people have for being vegetarian,or not wearing fur,or not having pets,or not taking pony rides,or not going to a Chicago Cubs game,because the name is demeaning to bears,or as Occam said using certain medicines which are extracted from animals(like insulin).That’s all good.It’s good to have moral compasses.
We used animals in the past for progress.We eat animals for nutrition.Now and in the past.I said it before,Sate has reiterated it,our bodies are built to eat and process meat and vegetables.This is not some vestigial process from Cavemen.

The last time I checked we have teeth designed for all kinds of foods.Are G.I.sytems have no problem with meats.We need a wide array of different types of proteins(amino acids)Iron,fats,calcium.(is milk unethical too?I mean that was meant for the calf not our stealing hands).
However,I don’t think we are very good at digesting heavy metals found in our tap water,Last time I checked we didn’t have special organs on our lungs to pre-filter out Hydrogen-sulfide,particulates,carbonmonoxide,sulphurs,PVC’s,chlorines,vulcanized rubber particulates,airborne metal,asbestos etc..
How’s the human body at digesting PCB’s,lead,chromium,arsenic,cyanides,dioxins.Not good?When is the big Moral Value Crowd and Ethics Symposium going to address these issues for real.This stuff kills animals,people and plants.

Still not sure what your point is,  VYAZMA. Yes, we can eat meat, and nobody disputes that. Yes, our ancestors did eat meat, again no argument. Does that mean we HAVE to eat meat? No. Does that mean it is right to eat meat? I don’t think so. The right or wrong of it isn’t really related to what we evolved to do unless there’s some necessity to it, which there isn’t. We can do it, we have done it, and now we get to decide if we want to keep doing it or not. Why does that bug you?

As for environmental toxins, what the heck does that have to do with it? I mean, if you’re suggesting that those are “real” moral issues and eating meat is not, well you’re free to ignore those of us who feel differently and want to talk about the ethics of meat. If you’re just saying those things are important and we should pay attention to them, I agree but that isn’t what this thread is about.

You are confusing nutrients with foods. We have certain nutrient requirements, which we have evolved, and these have minima, maxima, and optima.

Sounds like dog food that you find at a Vet’s office.

The source of individual nutrients is irrelevant. An amino acid is an amino acid whether it comes from beef or beans. While animal products (not only meat) are a convenient source of essential amino acids, these are not nearly as difficult to get from a meatless diet as you seem to think. And meat is also a convenient source of parasites and bacterial pathogens if not carefully handled and prepared. So the notion that it is intrinsically healthier to eat meat than to not eat it is inaccurate. Certainly, it is better to eat meat than to eat a diet deficient in amino acids or other essential nutrients, but that’s not the choice those of us in most of the modern world face. I work with obligate carnivores (cats), and I promise you that unlike them we have not evolved to require meat in our diet.

I also read meat stays in one’s system days longer than non-meat sources and I don’t mean “in one’s system” in a good way either.  We don’t digest it was well or as easily as carnivorous animals do.

McKenz-we are just going to keep circling.You don’t eat meat.More than 5 billion people do.(just rough guessing)Now,I know what you will say.No,you’d be surprised,alot of the earths humans don’t eat meat,or very little.The vast majority eat some kind of animal flesh sometimes,some more-some less.And believe me,those that can’t get it very often,wish they could.They eat it because it is socially acceptable,their parents fed it to them,it tastes good.Many of these folks,use animal power to help get in the harvest of the vegetables that they like to eat.And some hit the animals with a stick to get them to move.
You don’t eat meat.Someone else thinks it is unethical to have pets.People bomb Fur Traders shops.
You keep saying we are presenting straw man arguments,or natural fallacy,what are you putting forth?Ethics?Ethics?What could be more subjective?These ethics might have a little creedence in the bedroom community where you live,but there are millions of people starving out there-they’ll take beans,corn,meat,clean water,chicken,eggs,milk,or whatever else they can.
It is unethical to eat meat because the animal has no say in its destiny.What right have we to slay other creatures and eat them?
Well,like I said,what right has the wolf to stalk and kill a deer?Now come your straw arguments,and natural fallacies.Based on judging humans current form of food production,which IS distorted,due to demand.Hey-just because feed lots are digusting,filthridden death factories doesn’t mean they always will have to be that way.

Still not sure what your point is,  VYAZMA. Yes, we can eat meat, and nobody disputes that. Yes, our ancestors did eat meat, again no argument. Does that mean we HAVE to eat meat? No. Does that mean it is right to eat meat? I don’t think so. The right or wrong of it isn’t really related to what we evolved to do unless there’s some necessity to it, which there isn’t. We can do it, we have done it, and now we get to decide if we want to keep doing it or not. Why does that bug you?

As for environmental toxins, what the heck does that have to do with it? I mean, if you’re suggesting that those are “real” moral issues and eating meat is not, well you’re free to ignore those of us who feel differently and want to talk about the ethics of meat. If you’re just saying those things are important and we should pay attention to them, I agree but that isn’t what this thread is about.

Who is the “We”,in: “and now we get to decide if we want to keep doing it or not”?

I suppose this topic has a moral continuum as much any other. From eating plants to eating babies. We would all say (I hope) that the former is ok and the latter is not. We are looking to draw a line somewhere and we are finding it difficult because there are so many other factors thrown in. Singer argues that currently we use the species line to decide but if we believe in evolution and that we do not occupy a special place in the universe, the species line is an arbitrary one and we need to find another one. He suggests that we should not eat “beings with interests” as his line in the sand which, to me, seems like a more valid one. Actually, I think we already adhere to this one but it’s our perception of “beings with interests” that is off. We tend to anthropomorphize dogs and cats making the thought of eating them repulsive. In the same vein, I doubt we’d continue eating cows if they evolved to be as intelligent as we are.

My line in the sand, I suppose, has always been this skewed notion of “beings with interests” but I rationalized the of meat I eat (which is minimal - maybe once a week) based on the fact that well-raised meat is ok thinking that trading quality of life is a good trade for reduced longevity. I’ll have to give this one more thought but Singer has made a strong case…

Is it a faux-pas to quote myself? I just didn’t feel like repeating it. Those saying eating meat is ok are drawing the line at the human species but this is based on the reasoning that we evolved eating meat, or that we need to eat meat. Therefore those are the issues.

1) Is it reasonable to say that because we have evolved eating meat it is ethical to do so? This is the natural fallacy so no.

2) Do we need to eat meat? Clearly vegetarians aren’t starving to death so no.

3) Will eating meat reduce world famine? It would be easier to feed the world with primary producers (plants) rather than consumers (animals) so no.

4) Is it reasonable to say that because it is a social custom to eat meat that it’s ethical to eat meat? You’d have a really hard time convincing me.

Because I’ve answered no to all these questions, I feel that eating meat can be avoided therefore it is ethical to do so because it avoids unnecessary suffering of animals. Does anyone have a problem with any of these four points?

Lastly, lets remember that we’re discussing ideas here, not people’s intelligence. If someone gets something wrong it’s not because they’re an idiot and it doesn’t mean ALL their ideas are wrong.

I’m sorry if you don’t like the fact that I keep pointing out that what people do and what is right to do aren’t the same thing, but there it is. MIllions of people believe in god, beat their kids, treat women as less human than men, and so on, so I would think we could agree at least that being popular doesn’t make something right.

Strawmen? Sure. If you think talking about the ethics of eating meat automatically makes me a ALF terrorist or a fanatic then you’re wrong and just fighting strawmen. I never said, and don’t believe, that poor people should stop eating meat, that we shouldn’t keep pets, that we should bomb fur stores, or any of that crap, so it really isn’t relevant.

Is all ethics subjective? You bet. I’ve argued all over the board that morality is subjective and relative, so I certainly agree that there’s no outside source of the “right” answer. I think we have to figure out what’s right or wrong as best we can, and it is a matter of looking at our gut feelings and then using our brains to see if they make sense. Obviously, you and I have different gut feelings here, and that’s fine. All I’m trying to do is the second part—use my brain to see what makes sense. You seem to want to say “Hey, this is how I feel and any further discussion is pointless,“ and I just don’t see that. As I said, if you think the discussion isn’t worthwhile, you don’t have to play, but if you think the rest of us should give up on the topic just because it doesn’t move you personally, well that’s not likely.

I haven’t been very specific about exactly what I think since I’m trying to look at the issues objectively, and since I seem to be spending most of my time pointing out that the very question isn’t pointless to ask or talk about just because you and Occam and others aren’t interested in it. FWIW (which isn’t much), I think killing living things to live is an unavoidable necessity. It doesn’t bother me to kill plants for food because I don’ think I have a choice, and I don’t think they have any feelings. It doesn’t bother me very much to think of killing animals for food if I can avoid 1) causing unecessary suffering, and 2) wiping out the species. I happen to avoid meat because I think our industrial agricultural system causes lots of suffering for the sake of conevnience and greed, and I don’t really need meat anyway. I get eggs from local farms that I think treat their chickens ok. I haven’t found a great way to avoid industrial dairy products yet, so I still consume them. My wife and daughter eat meat and I don’t bug them about it. In fact, I make a mean corned beef and cabbage on St. Patrick’s day, even if I don’t eat it myself.

For me, it’s about doing as little harm as I can, not about some abstract moral perfection. But again, that’s just my personal position hammered out over time, and I’m not expecting others to come to the same position. I don’t tell people not to eat meat, though I’m willing to talk about why I think it’s a good idea not to if they’re interested. I also don’t tell people who are concerned about the ethics of meat that they’re wasting my time taling about it, that being a vegetarian is unnatrual, pintless, or all the sorts of things I’ve seen suggested here. I’m puzzled, and a bit irritated, not by the arguments for eating meat (which I’ve only shared a couple of) but by the presumption that it’s ok to tell other people not to botheirng worrying about it just becuase it doesn’t personally bother you.

P.S. “We” was intended to mean “humankind” in general, since I was talking about you’re assertion that humans have eaten meat throughout our history. To be more precise, “we” is obviously anyone who has a choice about what they eat. That’s most of the developed world, and some of the second world. Point?

Ok then.Eating meat is unethical.End of argument.

Actually this conclusion does not follow from either the podcast or our discussion here. What I get is that how we treat animals is subject to moral argumentation and not exempt. There are good arguments eating meat is unethical in and of itself, but none have been advanced here.

Exactly, there is nothing inherently wrong with eating meat, but rather it is how the meat is grown and harvested that it morally reprehensible.

Thank you for these thought-provoking interviews with Peter Singer. Just the thing.

Although in the podcast Peter Singer seems to make this point that the main issue is the ill treatment of the animals (their miserable life rather than their death), I was wondering if this is a pragmatic compromise on his part with ethical meat-eaters, or whether he actually is offended by meat eating in general and its elimination is his long term goal.

Thanks again—great interviews.

In closing… That’s a joke.This has become a wedge issue.A social-political wedge issue.McKenz,I have no wedge with you.Gosh darn it.I don’t think Veggies are unnatural.You make me mad with that assumption.I think,you think I’m some gun-toting right-winger,who wants to stamp out vegetarians in our time.I only used the Singer/vegetarian/dominionism/speciesism/platform to argue against ethics.Ethics in the face of reality.
This truly is a wedge issue.This is how king makers garner support to divide people.I believe if we are talking about ethics,then by default priorities must come into play.This is why I brought up pollution issues.If those kind of issues can’t be addressed,then what people choose/care to eat,is never going to be resolved.Without eating animals,or capturing them,or harnessing them,man is doing far more harm to animals through pollution and habitat encroachment.
This is my angle.And I’m sorry to use the argument to push my own beliefs.Ethics means choosing priorities.You never bugged me McKenz,with your ethical arguments,I said that plenty of times.I don’t think vegetarians/animal rights are a bunch of patchouli smelling hippies,who can’t get there priorities straight.There are people very close to me who are vegetarians.One for health,one for spiritual/ethical reasons.They are very close to me.
To me,you can line up all the vegetarians in the world though,and it isn’t going to matter.People are being bombed.Killed.Babies being put in microwaves.(from another post),Pollution and habitat encroachment.Pig-Sty Zoos,Goofy animal characterizations of people in childrens literature,millions of poor people who would love to have a piece of meat to eat.Ethics.

Hmm, arguing against ethics. That sounds like a good topic, so maybe you should start a thread? It seems from previous conversations that you believe in a strict realpolitik, where worrying about right and wrong take a back seat to action and power. Again, this isn’t the thread for it, but that would be a good topic.

Hmm, arguing against ethics. That sounds like a good topic, so maybe you should start a thread? It seems from previous conversations that you believe in a strict realpolitik, where worrying about right and wrong take a back seat to action and power. Again, this isn’t the thread for it, but that would be a good topic.

There are already plenty of threads that cover ethics here.At least 3-4,in 3-4 different categories.Religion,Politics,POI,Philosophy.
Ethics derive from innate Animalistic Behavior:Under normal circumstances,there is no inter-species murder,for example.Therefore it is unethical to murder someone.
Ethics derive more complicatedly from this point onwards.(They devolve from the progenitor of ethics-innate animalistic behavior)
Ethics are based on religous notions,which manifest in tradition,and in Legislature.
Ethics are reinforced strongly by the majority of the people,who are conditioned to these laws and values.Most people agree that vandalism is not acceptable.
Anyways,however ethics and values and laws are formed,I am basically satisfied with them.
Unfortunately,McKenz,what is right and wrong,have been taking a backseat to power and action forever.Must we cite the infinite examples?We can certainly cite examples where ethics have been used to promote ideas that I don’t think you would agree with.
So often times ethics are used to promote power.

Thanks for all your insightful responses, I have been reflecting upon your kind words and here are my reflections;

How does one ever measure pain? That is one of the main obstacles we face everyday when people claim homeopathy and/or acupuncture eases their pain. That begs the question; Do farm animals suffer/feel the same way? Are we to prevent ALL pain? What if we were to turn off the pain receptors of animals, is that less cruel? Is finding painless ways to slaughter the way to go?

Yet another obstacle; vegetarianism is, by nature, elitist; One of the juiciest and most delicious beef steaks I’ve ever had was once when I was a child and I went with my Abuelo to help with the fields in rural Mexico, Field work is very hard and workers eat important amounts of meat to recover their strength. I wouldn’t DARE tell those honest hard-working people (many didn’t know how to read or write) to change their ways. A nutrition doctor can tell you that if you are going to perform heavy physical work you do need copious amounts of protein, vegetable protein is not enough or not readily available for all.

You can always do what my old Buddhist master used to tell me; before indulging upon that hamburger say a little prayer and acknowledge the sacrifice of that animal so your own life can go on. Namaste.

Thanks for all your insightful responses, I have been reflecting upon your kind words and here are my reflections;

How does one ever measure pain? That is one of the main obstacles we face everyday when people claim homeopathy and/or acupuncture eases their pain. That begs the question; Do farm animals suffer/feel the same way? Are we to prevent ALL pain? What if we were to turn off the pain receptors of animals, is that less cruel? Is finding painless ways to slaughter the way to go?

Yet another obstacle; vegetarianism is, by nature, elitist; One of the juiciest and most delicious beef steaks I’ve ever had was once when I was a child and I went with my Abuelo to help with the fields in rural Mexico, Field work is very hard and workers eat important amounts of meat to recover their strength. I wouldn’t DARE tell those honest hard-working people (many didn’t know how to read or write) to change their ways. A nutrition doctor can tell you that if you are going to perform heavy physical work you do need copious amounts of protein, vegetable protein is not enough or not readily available for all.

You can always do what my old Buddhist master used to tell me; before indulging upon that hamburger say a little prayer and acknowledge the sacrifice of that animal so your own life can go on. Namaste.

C.A.Valdes-I would say that Buddhists,or Taoists,have the best mindset concerning ethics.That’s my opinion.Although they are a religion,and many practise vegetarianism,they would have a real good handle on meat,and humankinds relationship with animals.
In taoism,yin/yan has strong foundations for the implementation of ethics.So too does the notion of karma.
About pain.Charles Darwin’s code would make no mention of pain.Pain is a result of the natural order of life.Pain is one result of the"Survival of the Fittest”.

C.A. valdes,

Assessing pain is problematic, certainly. But that is no reason not to make an effort to assess it. We know a lot about how pain is processed in the nervous system of humans, and when animals have nervous systems organized and functionally very similar to ours, there’s no good reason to presume their experience of something so basic as pain is greatly different from ours. People’s pain is subjective to all kinds of psychological overlays, which makes placebos like homeopathy appear effective. Animals have little to none of this, so it is less of a problem. I am surprised by how often I have owners bring their pets to me saying “He’s limping, but he’s not in pain.“ When was the last time you limped when you didn’t have pain in the affected limb? Such a simple and seemingly obvious thing, and yet we are so tied in to verbal and facial manifestations of pain that we underestimate it in animals that do not express themselves as we do.

So while I agree the subteleties of subjective experience are complex, the issue of whether pain is present in the context we’re talking about, agricultural practices for producing meat, isn’t really that difficult. Certainly not difficult enough to justify throwing up our hands and ignoring the issue.

I disagree that vegetarianism is intrinsically elitist. Certainly, the wealthy have more choices about what they eat, so I’m not suggesting vegetarianism be forced on the poor. But it’s not elitist for the rich to choose to drive fuel efficient cars instead of Hummers, and it’s not elitist for those who have choices about what to eat to make them thoughtfully. As for the issue of meat and hard work, this is simply not true. Again fodd and nutrients are not the same, and there are plenty of vegetarians who get all the protein they need for heavy labor without meat. The argument that we should eat meat becuase we must in some biological sense just isn’t true. Now adequate protein without meat may not be available to everyone, and if eating meat is the alternative to malnutrition, of course people should it eat. But I haven’t heard anyone suggest that people in such circumstances should be forced to forgoe meat and suffer nutritionally, so that’s not a real issue. All i’m suggesting is that those who have the ability to make ethical choices should make the effort to do so when they can.

We know a lot about how pain is processed in the nervous system of humans, and when animals have nervous systems organized and functionally very similar to ours, there’s no good reason to presume their experience of something so basic as pain is greatly different from ours.

Brennen,

Have anyone ever done any study on this? I imagine that with the help of today’s advanced technology, such as fMRI, it shouldn’t be too difficult to see how and when animals experience pain.

I’ve always found it shocking when I meet people who believe themselves to act humanely not killing the fish after catching it, unhooking it instead and throwing it back in water. Do they really think the fish doesn’t feel any pain in the roof of its mouth? (That’s if the fish is lucky enough not to lose its eye.)

George,

Well, there are many studies looking at pain assessment in animals. The problem is that pain is fundamentally subjective, so it can’t really be measured objectively. Even in people, the standard way to measure it in clinical trials is the Visual Analog Score, where people rate their pain on a numerical scale, or similar self-reporting methods. So there is no gold standard. We know that things like endogenous cortisol, heart rate, blood pressure, vocalization, behavior, and so on all associate with pain, but not in ways that are reliably predictable across individuals and species. fMRI ultimately looks at what area of the brain is active during a behavior or stimulus. So sure, we can check what part of the brain reacts to soemthing we believe to be painful. But “how does that feel?“ is a quetsion we can’t ask, and that limits the value of this kind of imaging study. In veterinary medicine, pain assessment is a based on lookng at multiple variables and then ultimately taking your best educated guess.

We know a lot about how pain is processed in the nervous system of humans, and when animals have nervous systems organized and functionally very similar to ours, there’s no good reason to presume their experience of something so basic as pain is greatly different from ours.

Brennen,

Have anyone ever done any study on this? I imagine that with the help of today’s advanced technology, such as fMRI, it shouldn’t be too difficult to see how and when animals experience pain.

I’ve always found it shocking when I meet people who believe themselves to act humanely not killing the fish after catching it, unhooking it instead and throwing it back in water. Do they really think the fish doesn’t feel any pain in the roof of its mouth? (That’s if the fish is lucky enough not to lose its eye.)

Ok, here I have another question; is the killing part or the pain part that doesn’t make it OK?

This is such a timely podcast topic considering the recent passing of the California Prop. 2 Prevention of Farm Animal Cruelty Act. I decided to go vegan, (100% vegetarian), about a year and a half ago after watching many disturbing videos on the internet showing the cruelty of farm animals. I agree, research does show that a hard working vegetarian benefits from as much of the protein (amino acids) than that of a meat eater, as well as the daily requirement of iron, calcium, vitamins and nutrients. And vegetarianism is very ethical from not only Buddhist, Taoist and other religious prospectives, but from a secular humanist perspective. Consider the impact that mass vegetarianism could hold for humanity, the animals and the planet.

Regards,
WD

This is such a timely podcast topic considering the recent passing of the California Prop. 2 Prevention of Farm Animal Cruelty Act. I decided to go vegan, (100% vegetarian), about a year and a half ago after watching many disturbing videos on the internet showing the cruelty of farm animals. I agree, research does show that a hard working vegetarian benefits from as much of the protein (amino acids) than that of a meat eater, as well as the daily requirement of iron, calcium, vitamins and nutrients. And vegetarianism is very ethical from not only Buddhist, Taoist and other religious prospectives, but from a secular humanist perspective. Consider the impact that mass vegetarianism could hold for humanity, the animals and the planet.

Regards,
WD

I recently converted to Mormonism.Consider the impact that mass Mormonism could hold for Humanity,the animals and the planet.
We mormons are brimming with ethics.We are conscientious objectors,and we want peace.I recently saw videos that showed the effects of warfare,so I decided to go Mormon.

I recently converted to Mormonism.Consider the impact that mass Mormonism could hold for Humanity,the animals and the planet.
We mormons are brimming with ethics.We are conscientious objectors,and we want peace.I recently saw videos that showed the effects of warfare,so I decided to go Mormon.

Here is where I object (I think that’s your point). Forcing an ideology or a lifestyle is exactly what our opponents have tried to do with us.
As an atheist I approve of religious people who are respectful and tolerant, they have taught me to be respectful and tolerant myself. A mass ideology would solve nothing and is one step short of becoming totalitarian.

C.A.V. What is your art project?Has my sarcasm offended you?Please explain your take on my statement if you will.Do you think my use of sarcasm,and parody was uncalled for?

C.A.V. What is your art project?Has my sarcasm offended you?Please explain your take on my statement if you will.Do you think my use of sarcasm,and parody was uncalled for?

I think your sarcasm is spot-on and totally right, no offense meant!

C.A.V. What is your art project?Has my sarcasm offended you?Please explain your take on my statement if you will.Do you think my use of sarcasm,and parody was uncalled for?

I think your sarcasm is spot-on and totally right, no offense meant!

Good.Thanx.Because sometimes I feel I’m swimming upstream in this topic.If an individual wants to be vegan-great!As for mass-movements,I think there are more important issues.Can you visualize a world of vegetarians,in a world that still has Nuclear weapons?I can’t.I can’t visualize a world of Vegetarians in a world of Christians,Jews,or Moslems.This is a small abstract on the idea of vegetarian ethics.

Thanks for the great posts, McKenzie, very interesting stuff.

I haven’t found a great way to avoid industrial dairy products yet, so I still consume them.

Why don’t you give them up, as you have given up meat?  There’s plenty of suffering in the dairy industry, and we don’t need dairy products any more than we need meat, right?

Mckenzie, what other easily obtainable sources of protein are there if you are allergic to soy, besides the other legumes?

VYAZMA,

So choosing not to eat meat somehow interferes with nuclear disarmament? We can’t choose our food in a way that makes sense to us and still work on other issues? You still make the arrogant assumption that because you don’t care about the ethical problem of eating meat that no one else should either. You act as if somebody is trying to stuff the idea down your throat, yet you voluntarily participate in this thread. If the whole issue is such a waste of time, couldn’t you be doing something else more important? Think of all the evil you could combat with your sarcasm if you weren’t wasting time arguing with vegetarians!

Ultimately, nobody here is forcing anything on anybody, so the repeated protests from VYAZMA and C.A. Valdes that we shouldn’t do this is misdirected. How about if I personally apologize for every militant, obnoxious vegetarian who’s ever annoyed you? Then can we talk about the issues instead of your right to eat whatever you want and how the whole topic is a waste of time?

Those of you concerned with the cruelty on farm animals (which, of course, is something I deplore) have you ever seen a desmonte operation? (sorry, I don’t know how to call the ‘desmonte’ in english). In those kind of operation the land is prepared to direct swoning… a lot of times burning every plant which could be there.

A lot of wild animals are burned alive, and the lucky ones starve. In the country I live in, those years of high soy prices were terrible for wild animals. The smoke of those operations covered the capital for five days during the month of may, and the capital is 100 km away from the nearest land dedicated to crops.

Of course we should behave more ethicaly with farm animals. I don’t feel guilty because I have to kill to live, but I think we should tackle the living condition of those animals which serves directly or indirectly to feed us.

We should leave land for wildlife, not converting every portion of land in a productive crop land.

We should not overfish, not only killing fishes but also starving other species we don’t eat.

I wonder if we could do that and still feed six billion people (ok, we are not feeding six billion people, I know). I wonder if the problem, the underlying problem, is not the resource scarcity.

Asanta,

HERE is the NIH page on vegetarian nutrition, with lots of good links. Obviously eggs and dairy are good sources for non-vegans. Otherwise, beans,, nuts, and legumes are good sources. But there is a fair bit of protein in lots of foods, so the issue is just balancing essential amino acids.

Here is a chart of the protein content of some non-meat foods:
Food—Amount—protein(g)—protein (g/100kcal)
Tempeh 1 cup 41 9.3
Seitan 3 ounces 31 22.1
Soybeans, cooked 1 cup 29 9.6
Lentils, cooked 1 cup 18 7.8
Black beans, cooked 1 cup 15 6.7
Kidney beans, cooked 1 cup 13 6.4
Veggie burger 1 patty 13 13.0
Chickpeas, cooked 1 cup 12 4.2
Veggie baked beans 1 cup 12 5.0
Pinto beans, cooked 1 cup 12 5.7
Black-eyed peas, cooked 1 cup 11 6.2
Tofu, firm 4 ounces 11 11.7
Lima beans, cooked 1 cup 10 5.7
Quinoa, cooked 1 cup 9 3.5
Tofu, regular 4 ounces 9 10.6
Bagel 1 med.
(3 oz) 9 3.9
Peas, cooked 1 cup 9 6.4
Textured Vegetable Protein (TVP), cooked 1/2 cup 8 8.4
Peanut butter 2 Tbsp 8 4.3
Veggie dog 1 link 8 13.3
Spaghetti, cooked 1 cup 8 3.7
Almonds 1/4 cup 8 3.7
Soy milk, commercial, plain 1 cup 7 7.0
Soy yogurt, plain 6 ounces 6 4.0
Bulgur, cooked 1 cup 6 3.7
Sunflower seeds 1/4 cup 6 3.3
Whole wheat bread 2 slices 5 3.9
Cashews 1/4 cup 5 2.7
Almond butter 2 Tbsp 5 2.4
Brown rice, cooked 1 cup 5 2.1
Spinach, cooked 1 cup 5 13.0
Broccoli, cooked 1 cup 4 6.8
Potato 1 med.
(6 oz) 4 2.7
Sources: USDA Nutrient Database for Standard Reference, Release 18, 2005 and manufacturers’ information.

The recommendation for protein for adult males vegans is around 56-70 grams per day; for adult female vegans it is around 46-58 grams per day (see text).

The key is a varied diet. It is a myth that you need to deliberately combine proteins sources to get all essential amino acids. You just need to eat a good variety of plant proteins over the course of an average week to make sure you get the core AA.

Barto,

I think “clearcutting” or “slash and burn” would be the closest equivalents to desmonte.

Again, I’d make the point that we could feed more people with less land by growing food corps directly instead of growing feed for livestock. Less meat consumption would reduce the negative environmental impact of agriculture.

Thanks McKenzie . We only eat poultry (meat and eggs) and fish, but I’d like to have some veggie meals for a change.

Again, I’d make the point that we could feed more people with less land by growing food corps directly instead of growing feed for livestock. Less meat consumption would reduce the negative environmental impact of agriculture.

Well, I don’t have the exact figures on environmental impact, need for additives and fertilizants require for each crop,  but we don’t use the same crops to feed livestock and for humans.

The soy requires a lot of fertilizants and degrades the land. We have to add a lot of things to get such crop with a lot of proteins. The correct comparision would have to take into account fertilizants and additives used in soy with the forage needs.

On the other hand, we feed livestock with much cheaper forage which requires less water, fertilizants and, also, it could be growth in worst land, especially the more resilent livestock as lambs.

I recently converted to Mormonism.Consider the impact that mass Mormonism could hold for Humanity,the animals and the planet.
We mormons are brimming with ethics.We are conscientious objectors,and we want peace.I recently saw videos that showed the effects of warfare,so I decided to go Mormon.

[ Poe’s Law—“ Without a winking smiley or other blatant display of humor, it is impossible to create a parody of Fundamentalism that SOMEONE won’t mistake for the real thing”[1] ]

Recently there have been advances on harvesting meat artificially in a laboratory (Link), Let’s say that animal-free meat is suddenly available and affordable (and does not taste like cardboard), would you switch back from veggies?

Recently there have been advances on harvesting meat artificially in a laboratory (Link), Let’s say that animal-free meat is suddenly available and affordable (and does not taste like cardboard), would you switch back from veggies?

I have thought about this before. I probably wouldn’t. The reason I stopped eating meat wasn’t ethical but aesthetical; when I see a steak I see a dead cow, not food. But because I feel sorry for the animals I don’t buy leather products anymore. So if they can grow me leather, I would go for it: I like leather seats in my car.

Let’s say that animal-free meat is suddenly available and affordable (and does not taste like cardboard), would you switch back from veggies?

I’ve been vegan for 8 years (I went lacto-ovo vegetarian after reading Singer’s “Practical Ethics”, then vegan a year later after reading “Animal Liberation”), so I guess I can chime in on this.  Yes, I would eat vat meat in a second if it were ever perfected.  Nobody enjoyed a prime rib more than I did, back in the day, and no vegan enjoys high-quality fake meat more than I do.  I would probably limit my intake of it for health reasons, as I currently limit my intake of fake meat because of price and sodium issues.

Again, I’d make the point that we could feed more people with less land by growing food corps directly instead of growing feed for livestock. Less meat consumption would reduce the negative environmental impact of agriculture.

Well, I don’t have the exact figures on environmental impact, need for additives and fertilizants require for each crop,  but we don’t use the same crops to feed livestock and for humans.

The soy requires a lot of fertilizants and degrades the land. We have to add a lot of things to get such crop with a lot of proteins. The correct comparision would have to take into account fertilizants and additives used in soy with the forage needs.

On the other hand, we feed livestock with much cheaper forage which requires less water, fertilizants and, also, it could be growth in worst land, especially the more resilent livestock as lambs.

Barto. The other thing to consider is that for every calorie of energy in meat that cow had to consume 10 calories which means you’re only getting 10% of the energy out that you put in. All of the studies I’ve seen indicate that meat and dairy have worse environmental impacts than a vegetarian diet, especially in term of greenhouse gas emissions where beef is the absolute worst thing you can eat. In terms of GHG emission it’s better to eat tofu sent from China than beef. Just some food for thought!

Barto. The other thing to consider is that for every calorie of energy in meat that cow had to consume 10 calories which means you’re only getting 10% of the energy out that you put in. All of the studies I’ve seen indicate that meat and dairy have worse environmental impacts than a vegetarian diet, especially in term of greenhouse gas emissions where beef is the absolute worst thing you can eat. In terms of GHG emission it’s better to eat tofu sent from China than beef. Just some food for thought!

I mean that the comparision should be done in that way:

- For the soy, take into account the fertilizants and aditives, and the energy used to produce them.

- For the livestock (not only cows, here there are lambs where no other thing could be grown, in previously deserts lands, with an average of 1 lamb for 2 ha) you have to considerer the energy used to grow the forage used to feed it, the energy used by the animal to live and build the things which are not consumed

I can understand that there is a diference on the crops, but the soy doens’t grow naturally with those proteins in it, and the regular land is not enough to produce what we produce. On the other hand, the regular land tend to be enough to grow livestock, even in hard areas (not cows, of course), as the argentinian south.

On the other hand, what I wanted to point out is that the soy crops involves animal cruelty, at least here in the country I live in.

I mean that the comparision should be done in that way:

- For the soy, take into account the fertilizants and aditives, and the energy used to produce them.

- For the livestock (not only cows, here there are lambs where no other thing could be grown, in previously deserts lands, with an average of 1 lamb for 2 ha) you have to considerer the energy used to grow the forage used to feed it, the energy used by the animal to live and build the things which are not consumed

I can understand that there is a diference on the crops, but the soy doens’t grow naturally with those proteins in it, and the regular land is not enough to produce what we produce. On the other hand, the regular land tend to be enough to grow livestock, even in hard areas (not cows, of course), as the argentinian south.

On the other hand, what I wanted to point out is that the soy crops involves animal cruelty, at least here in the country I live in.

Am I correct in saying that you’re points are:

1) Soy products are as environmentally damaging as meat production?

2) Soy crops cause as much animal cruelty as meat production?

I apologize if I got those wrong but I’ll respond to them:

1) A quick internet search would suggest that the environmental impact of soy based products is about half that of meat products per energy produced. Please tell me if you find sources that indicate otherwise.

That said, I’m sure there are places where raising livestock is the only food producing activity possible and in cases where livestock is grazed on land that was naturally pasture, I think that eating that meat is ethical provided they are killed in a humane way.

2) I think you’d have a hard time making this point. In those cases where animals are being burned alive to make way for soy crops (which is not really common practice here in Canada, I might point out that the same can happen when creating animal pastures) certainly this is not an ethical pratice. But I think this ignores the reality of both industrial meat production and the fact that most soy fields are not cleared in this way.

No, my point arent such points. I am not making any point except that I like to see what the real diference between soy and livestock is in energy consumption and warn that, at least in the underdeveloped (poors, to say it clearly) countries, animal cruelty has a lot to do with other factors.

About the points.

1) I don’t find hard to believe that the soy is more eficient than certain types of livestock (anyway, if you could point me to any quantitative study it would be great), what I say it is I’ve read comparisions where the energy needed for fertilizants wasn’t taken into account, while the livestock here is usualy fed with natural pasture. (natural means natural, not deforested lands prepared to grow livestock).

The figures are quite difficult, I wonder what the diference would be (between soy and extensive livestock, for both lambs and cows and for goats would be ideal). For instance, argentina exported more than 12 millions of ton of soy the last year, without taking into account oils and other soy products.  It means that, the soy bean were 160.000 ton of phosphorus. To be in balance, 800.000 tons of calcium triphosphate were needed, and the study should count the energy needed to produce them.

Please, understand, it is not a defense nor a justification of my behavior which I don’t feel I need, it is just curiosity.

2) I agree that it is not an ethical practice. Moreover, it is illegal here, but it still is pretty common. Every fall, the argentinian city of Rosario is covered by smoke produced by burning grassland, at least during the commodities boom. This year the smoke reached the capital (200 km to the south).

The official estimations are that 200.000 ha are burned ilegally every year.

It is not a sarcams, if you are concerned with animal cruelty, you should avoid argentinian (and I dare to add) paraguayan, brazilian and uruguayan soy and just consume the soy from countries where those unethical practices were uncommon.

Again, I understand animal cruelty in the same way I understand human cruelty: subproduct of poverty, overpopulation and greediness, except, maybe, for the form of animal cruelty needed for developing new drugs ( we try to minimize their suffering, but sometimes is unavoidable )

Barto,
You’re certainly making an important poit. My understanding is the same as jerbreck’s; that even when fertilizers and all other such factors are accounted for, overall the efficiency in terms of calories produced per acre or per unit of fossil feul energy etc used is greater for plant food sources than for livestock. It is true that animals can graze in areas that are not suitable for growing crops. But these are areas that are poorly productive in general, and the amount of food from such liveestock requires even more land and is severely limited. This strategy is adequate for subsistence agriculture by nomadic pastoral societies, but not effcient or environmentally sustainable for the world as populous as it now is. Reducing the amount of meat eaten and putting that energy into plant food sources would make available more food for less cost and less impact on the environment, at least as I understand the data. I admit, it is a complicated issue, and there is some controversy about almost any figures or analysis you can find.

On the question of in vitro meat, personally I’d be fine eating it. I don’t especially miss meat in the 5 years or so since I gave it up, but in vitro meat would certainly eliminate many of my concerns about the ethical and environmental issues, assuming it was produced in a sustainable way.

“Nothing will benefit human health and increase chances for survival of life on Earth as much as the evolution to a vegetarian diet.“  ~Albert Einstein

We as humans are a product of evolution and natural selection but, we have reached a point in our evolution and the evolution of the planet where all species and all of their offspring are soon headed for great peril. Science is indeed the greatest accomplishment of humans. With science we have the tools to learn form the mistakes we have made in the process of our evolution. Our ecosystem will soon no longer be able to sustain the strain of human over population and the extinctions of the rest of the earths inhabitants. Scientific analysis leaves no doubt of the above statements. This thread discussion has thus far shown the many benefits of vegetarianism. With science as our guide we can better understand the facts and the ethical considerations that we as a conscious and cognitive species have inherited. What ethical considerations can we make that will solve the great problems that we all face? What are we willing to sacrifice from our over-consumption, pleasure based lifestyle that will assure our survival and the survival of our fellow animal species?

Regards,
WD

Recently there have been advances on harvesting meat artificially in a laboratory (Link), Let’s say that animal-free meat is suddenly available and affordable (and does not taste like cardboard), would you switch back from veggies?

I’m reminded of that classic movie [  Soylent Green ]

I have thought about this before. I probably wouldn’t. The reason I stopped eating meat wasn’t ethical but aesthetical; when I see a steak I see a dead cow, not food. But because I feel sorry for the animals I don’t buy leather products anymore. So if they can grow me leather, I would go for it: I like leather seats in my car.

Steven Novella (i might be wrong, quoting from memory) said; “What can I ever say to make you change your mind?“. if the answer is “Nothing”, then there’s no point discussing. However, the sensible thing to do is open yourself to the margin of error:
I put the question and I must answer it for myself; What can you say to make me give up my beloved meat?. I must tell you that I quit smoking not because of health risks or gruesome x-rays or biopsies, but it was the second that smoking kinda repulsed me. You say that you are actually repulsed by meat; so, here’s my answer;
If your argument and/or demonstration made me look meat in a different way (you see dead cows) I would definitively consider changing my ways. I would not eat cat or apes (living in Mexico I must have by now eaten dog, albeit unwillingly), so there might be hope for me, I am open to reading from you all.

VYAZMA,

So choosing not to eat meat somehow interferes with nuclear disarmament? We can’t choose our food in a way that makes sense to us and still work on other issues? You still make the arrogant assumption that because you don’t care about the ethical problem of eating meat that no one else should either. You act as if somebody is trying to stuff the idea down your throat, yet you voluntarily participate in this thread. If the whole issue is such a waste of time, couldn’t you be doing something else more important? Think of all the evil you could combat with your sarcasm if you weren’t wasting time arguing with vegetarians!

Ultimately, nobody here is forcing anything on anybody, so the repeated protests from VYAZMA and C.A. Valdes that we shouldn’t do this is misdirected. How about if I personally apologize for every militant, obnoxious vegetarian who’s ever annoyed you? Then can we talk about the issues instead of your right to eat whatever you want and how the whole topic is a waste of time?

Again McKenz,As is borne out in this post of yours,You continue to insinuate that I am anti-veggie.“obnoxious vegetarian that has ever annoyed you”???What??!!?
As of yet,McKenz,No one has proven that there is an ethical problem of eating meat.So I don’t care about the “problem”(as you stated) either way.Of course if we are going to settle this ethical “problem” by looking at the number of animals that eat meat,including humans,than anybody could clearly see that there is no “problem”.
Your only response to this so far has been to say:“Just because billions and billions of animals,including humans have done it for millenia,doesn’t make it right!!“
Then of course you say that Humans have a higher capacity for ethical decisions,we can find a “better"way.Of course in my opinion this flys right in the face of the concepts of Dominionism and Speciesism(sp?).

I agree with Dr Singer that we have an obligation to protect and prevent the suffering of the species with whom we share the planet but I do not agree with his, Dr Dawkin’s and D.J.‘s assessment that there is somehow an inconsistency with being both an evolutionist and a meat eater.

Natural selection acting on our species over the eons has resulted in:
-Teeth that are capable of processing both meat and vegetable food sources.
-Adult lactose tolerance in many races indicating an evolutionary co-relationship with bovines
-Certain B-vitamin requirements that are most easily acquired from meat
-Appendages equally good at hurling projectiles at prey as they are at shaking fruit out of trees.
-Forward facing, binocular eyes, well suited for the depth perception required in hunting
-An efficient cooling system, sweat, which makes it possible to track prey over long distances
-Relative hairlessness meaning that historically we have had to protect ourselves from environmental conditions by covering ourselves with animal skins. (We certainly no longer need to do this)

Furthermore, though the animals we eat die in the process, by artificially selecting their genes we are making them quite successful as individual species. If humanity converted to pure herbivory, they would go extinct.

I also feel it is important to point out some features that Dr Singer’s views have in common with religion:
-Given that humans are omnivorous primates, vegetarianism, like celibacy, a decidedly religious concept, is a form of self denial as to what we are as biological organisms
-Stating that Charles Darwin would likely be a vegetarian today, Dr. Singer sounds strangely reminiscent of a Christian declaring that he knows what Jesus would do or “drive’. This comes close to being an attempt at turning the purely descriptive science of evolution into an ideology.

Many thanks to DJ for an outstanding podcast!

Next time you are eating meat, Augusto, imagine you’re eating a rat. That might help. Now, in return, you have to help me to hate cigarettes…

Then of course you say that Humans have a higher capacity for ethical decisions,we can find a “better"way.Of course in my opinion this flys right in the face of the concepts of Dominionism and Speciesism(sp?).

VYAZMA.

Humans DO have a higher capacity for ethical decision making. That makes us DIFFERENT not BETTER. The same way a bird’s ability to fly makes it different, not better.

Speciesism is discriminating based on species which organisms deserve moral consideration and which don’t. People in this thread are saying let’s COMPLETELY ignore species when deciding what to eat and what not to eat.

I will use a metaphor I’ve already used on here with the final goal of asking a direct question. If we consider the things we could possibly eat on a spectrum, we can go from plants to humans babies. We have no problem eating plants and no one will defend eating babies. Therefore there exists a line between the two where, on one side we can eat the organism in question, and on the other side we can’t. Currently, the majority thinks this line should be drawn after Homo Sapien. We can eat any species that is not Homo Sapien. That is speciesist because moral consideration can only be obtained by membership in our species. Singer says we should ignore species altogether when considering what we eat and what we don’t. We ignore species because a) we know all species are equal in the eyes of evolution and b) humans do not occupy any special place relative to other species. He thinks a good place to draw the line is at organisms that have interests. His concept explicitly ignores species when considering what to eat and what not to and therefore cannot be speciesist.

If you are not speciesist, where do you draw that line and why do you draw there? If you are speciesist then you think humans occupy a special place in the world.

Next time you are eating meat, Augusto, imagine you’re eating a rat. That might help. Now, in return, you have to help me to hate cigarettes…

I would eat rat if it were from a source I can trust. I mean, I wouldn’t eat a rat from the culvert, but I would have any trouble with a rat from a controlled source.

It would be nice to have D.J. Grothe and/or Singer visit this forum to respond to some of the objections.

This is where I am more than a little perplexed from the discussion on the second segment of the Singer interview.  Like others, I don’t see how it follows that if you accept Darwinian evolution, have a naturalistic world view and ethics that this neccessarily leads to accepting that eating meat is unethical.

I think there are good moral arguments for vegetarianism, but I don’t understand how it follows from Darwinism.

Others have already pointed out that meat eating is part of our evolutionary heritage.  This would fall into the naturalistic fallacy as a moral argument, but it still seems valid from an evolutionary point of view.

Next time you are eating meat, Augusto, imagine you’re eating a rat. That might help. Now, in return, you have to help me to hate cigarettes…

I would eat rat if it were from a source I can trust. I mean, I wouldn’t eat a rat from the culvert, but I would have any trouble with a rat from a controlled source.

That’s because you, guys, are always high on maté and don’t know what the heck you’re eating anyway… 

That’s because you, guys, are always high on maté and don’t know what the heck you’re eating anyway… 

Yes, the mate induces mystical experiences, dangerous ones. 

Sheldon,

Yes, I have to say I agree it’s a weak argument. I suppose certain aspects of the ethical issue could be supported by Darwinism. For example, we accept that humans experience pain and other kinds of suffering, so the closer phylogenetically a species is to us, the more resemblance one might see between their feelings and ours, which could bolster cruelty arguments, but I don’t think that’s what Singer’s getting at. I think he’s trying to say that we put humans in a special and unique moral category based on species membership, anbd that given the evolutionary continuity of descent this is irrational. It might make sense if we had souls and were made in the image of God and nothing else was that we would get special consideration, but since Darwinism shows there are no bright lines between species there’s no reason why killing and eating cows should be ok and killing and eating people isn’t. Still, I think it’s a weak argument, apart from dispelling the soul one which none of the meat eaters here hold to anyway.

I also wonder if most people are actually disgusted by eating animals without realizing it. Is it why we call a cow “beef” and a pig “pork”? Does that help us to forget? Is it easier to eat pork instead of a pig?

McKenzie and Sheldon,

Just to give my two cents here. I kind of feel the opposite way. I’ve never been a committed vegetarian because I felt so many of the arguments were based on subjective arguments. I feel like Singer’s is the most objective argument I’ve ever heard on this issue and it appeals to me rationally and emotionally. It puts a spotlight on the anthropocentric philosophy that defines what can be eaten and what can’t be eaten and how we need better reasons for deciding what we eat and what we don’t. Eliminating speciesism doesn’t necessarily entail not eating meat either. He says that the most important to him (I feel like he leaves room to maneuver here) is to reduce the animals’ suffering which can be done either by not eating meat or choosing meat that has been raised humanely.

I also wonder if most people are actually disgusted by eating animals without realizing it. Is it why we call a cow “beef” and a pig “pork”? Does that help us to forget? Is it easier to eat pork instead of a pig?

The reason we have different words for these meats goes back to when the Normans conquered the English. French was the language spoken in the markets but farmers retained the English language. Therefore, they would take the meat of the cow to the market where they sold it in French as ‘boeuf’ which became beef. Same with pig which in French is ‘porc’. There are a couple more too: veal = ‘veau’ and mutton = ‘mouton’. In French there is no difference between the word for the meat and the animal. I’ve always wondered why chicken stayed the same.

I also wonder if most people are actually disgusted by eating animals without realizing it. Is it why we call a cow “beef” and a pig “pork”? Does that help us to forget? Is it easier to eat pork instead of a pig?

Well, we eat ‘chancho’ or ‘cerdo’, two spanish words to name the same animal (pig) and those two words are also used to denote something disgusting.

I’ve always wondered why chicken stayed the same.

There is “poultry” (?). Sounds very close to “pullet.“

I tend to agree with Brennen.

We, humans, are not special. Still, we are different from rats as said before, our pain is different: when you are in a plane and it seems to be in trouble, you grieve about what will become of our loved ones without your emotionally and financially support, and you grieve because of their pain to lose you, something that doesn’t seem to happen to a rat killed by an exterminator. It is a powerful argument to distinguish between certain species of animals, us included.

Maybe there were no biological reasons to support the idea that we, as human, should have more rights than every animal specie, but denying the possibility to have more rights that any other specie would lead us to the slippery slope of having to share our cities with rats or give up the development of new drugs. Maybe our only argument is that we kill rats who compete with us for a place in the cities and use animals in drug experimentation because it entails a benefits for us and we can do it.

The point I see in Singer’s argument is that he seems to claim that we (animals and us) should be treated equally, but then he admits the possibility to kill (without pain) animals for the sake of our benefits. If you accept certain situation where kill an animal is acceptable to save a human life, then you are admitting that they are a step bellow us.

Still, we can have strong arguments against cruelty.

I also wonder if most people are actually disgusted by eating animals without realizing it. Is it why we call a cow “beef” and a pig “pork”? Does that help us to forget? Is it easier to eat pork instead of a pig?

Well, we eat ‘chancho’ or ‘cerdo’, two spanish words to name the same animal (pig) and those two words are also used to denote something disgusting.

True.

In Czech we do have different names for the meat and the animals.

Barto,

I tend to prefer a concept of suffering based on understanding the physical and behavioral needs of the particular species. As you say, rats don’t have a concept of family or future, so they don’t suffer from the knowledge they will be separated from their family in the future. But they do have a very strong innate behavioral need to interact with other rats, and they suffer from being housed alone or in groups that don’t pproximate natural social groupings for the species. So I think we can acknowledge the kinds of suffering a given species can be capable of and use this knowledge to guide how we treat them without going to the absurd extremes of giving rats the right to vote and so on.

I did my Master’s degree on enrichment for captive chimpanzees, and the whole point was to determine how we can objectively assess the needs of an animal in captivity and best meet those needs within the limitations of the captive environment, so I can tell you there has been a lot of work done on this subject, and it’s more solid than the charicature of “human rights for animals” that the extremists in the animal rights movement or the average “anti-vegetarian” present.

So I think we can acknowledge the kinds of suffering a given species can be capable of and use this knowledge to guide how we treat them without going to the absurd extremes of giving rats the right to vote and so on.

I agree. We cannot give the rats the right to vote and would be very dificult to extend the Helsinki declaration to protect rats, although I’d like it (the Helsinki declaration) to include big apes.

Barto,

I tend to prefer a concept of suffering based on understanding the physical and behavioral needs of the particular species. As you say, rats don’t have a concept of family or future, so they don’t suffer from the knowledge they will be separated from their family in the future. But they do have a very strong innate behavioral need to interact with other rats, and they suffer from being housed alone or in groups that don’t pproximate natural social groupings for the species. So I think we can acknowledge the kinds of suffering a given species can be capable of and use this knowledge to guide how we treat them without going to the absurd extremes of giving rats the right to vote and so on.

I did my Master’s degree on enrichment for captive chimpanzees, and the whole point was to determine how we can objectively assess the needs of an animal in captivity and best meet those needs within the limitations of the captive environment, so I can tell you there has been a lot of work done on this subject, and it’s more solid than the charicature of “human rights for animals” that the extremists in the animal rights movement or the average “anti-vegetarian” present.

Brennen,

I appreciate your point and everyone else’s point in this thread about speciesism, animal rights, and animal cruelty, but where do we objectively draw the line as to what is the “most ethical choice” for eating or not eating animals? Given the choice of satisfying non-meat alternatives that are fully sufficient to meet the needs of human nutrition, why eat meat at all? There is sufficient research indicating that greenhouse gas emissions from livestock is much greater than carbon based emission output contributing to increased global warming. And cattle grazing and soy crops grown to feed cattle are the greater culprit of deforestation in the Amazon Basin than is oil exploitation. (Google up a search for author John Robbins for more info).

Regards,
WD

Eliminating speciesism doesn’t necessarily entail not eating meat either. He says that the most important to him (I feel like he leaves room to maneuver here) is to reduce the animals’ suffering which can be done either by not eating meat or choosing meat that has been raised humanely.

It’s been awhile since I’ve read Animal Liberation, but I’m pretty sure that this is not Singer’s position, at least at the time that he wrote that book.  The most important ethical consideration is to minimize the amount of unnecessary suffering that we cause.  But even the act of painlessly killing an animal has ethical ramifications to the extent that the animal has some level of self-awareness that allows it to form the concept of its own future.  And for the rest, the issue is not only raising them humanely, but slaughtering them painlessly.  What percentage of farmed animals, even those raised in free-range environments, have satisfactory lives and deaths by these standards?

Eliminating speciesism doesn’t necessarily entail not eating meat either. He says that the most important to him (I feel like he leaves room to maneuver here) is to reduce the animals’ suffering which can be done either by not eating meat or choosing meat that has been raised humanely.

It’s been awhile since I’ve read Animal Liberation, but I’m pretty sure that this is not Singer’s position, at least at the time that he wrote that book.  The most important ethical consideration is to minimize the amount of unnecessary suffering that we cause.  But even the act of painlessly killing an animal has ethical ramifications to the extent that the animal has some level of self-awareness that allows it to form the concept of its own future.  And for the rest, the issue is not only raising them humanely, but slaughtering them painlessly.  What percentage of farmed animals, even those raised in free-range environments, have satisfactory lives and deaths by these standards?

Flib. I guess I wasn’t thorough enough in my wording. I should have said raised and killed humanely. I assumed the killed humanely part was implied.

Also, I haven’t read Animal Liberation. I was referring to the position Singer takes in the podcast that is the subject of this thread.

The question of a satisfactory life and self-awareness is a tough and, I think, the least clear cut part of this issue. Where I grew up there are many free range farms and the animals can roam free and seem to enjoy (as best I can tell which I admit is limited) satisfactory lives. One one hand, they are free from predators and have an endless supply of food but on the other hand their lives are cut short so they can be eaten. Is quality of life (in cases where animals are fortunate enough to enjoy this) a sufficient trade-off for a shortened life? I’d be tempted to say no but I also don’t think it’s a closed case.

Given the choice of satisfying non-meat alternatives that are fully sufficient to meet the needs of human nutrition, why eat meat at all? There is sufficient research indicating that greenhouse gas emissions from livestock is much greater than carbon based emission output contributing to increased global warming. And cattle grazing and soy crops grown to feed cattle are the greater culprit of deforestation in the Amazon Basin than oil exploitation. (Google up a search for author John Robbin’s for more info).

Mr. Simonton,

It seems to me that what you’re criticizing in your post isn’t meat eating per say, but factory farming. The Weston Price Foundation, which is VERY pro-meat consumption, is also very ANTI feeding grain to cattle and raising them in a confined, unnatural manner. Consider this excerpt from an article there titled ““Milk: It Does the Body Good?“:

If I were to ask you to picture a cow, you would most likely see in your mind a cow grazing in an open pasture, like one you’d probably seen before on a small family farm. That’s a lucky cow, compared to most of the cows bred for dairy production in this country. The majority of commercial dairy cows don’t have the luxury of grazing on open fields. Instead they are kept in intense confinement, in individual stalls, on hard cement floors, hooked up to milking machines, forced to produce milk ten months out of the year, in an overcrowded building. This is how the average commercial dairy cow spends her short, miserable life—42 months on average, compared to 12-15 years for a cow on pasture.

That certainly doesn’t sound like a pro-factory farming sentiment. Yet it’s author, nutritionist Lori Lipinski, most certainly isn’t a vegan of vegetarian.

On the same website, Jim Earles, also a meat eater, writes in “Letter to Vegetarians”:

we oppose Genetically Modified foods
we support the ideals of organic and biodynamic agriculture
we oppose unsustainable methods of corporate agriculture, which drive out small farmers, thrive on the use of pesticides and chemicals, deplete the soil, produce an inferior product and cause tremendous harm and suffering to countless animals
we support efforts to obtain quality foods in a whole state directly off of local farms, thereby supporting small farmers and local economy, and also by-passing the ridiculous state of affairs wherein most modern organic foods travel further from the farm to your dinner plate than do their conventional equivalents
we oppose food irradiation
we believe that the typical diet of the average (meat-eating) American is extremely unhealthful
we believe that the practice of raising vast amounts of grains to feed the cows that are turned into fast-food hamburgers is wasteful and destructive of our environment (Raising a cow on grains is the equivalent of raising a child on a diet of candy. The cow will get very fat—which is what drives the practice in the first place—but it also makes the animals unhealthy, makes them produce copious amounts of methane, and greatly diminishes the nutritive value of the milk and meat which are obtained from it. Exclusive grass feeding makes for a happy, healthy animal, provides superior nutrition in milk and meat, and naturally limits the number of animals that may be raised in one location.)
we believe that Americans today consume far too much sugar and empty calories, especially young people and especially in the form of soft drinks
we believe that the answer to a great many of the health problems people are experiencing today is to radically change and improve our diets…although our group would prescribe very different sorts of changes than would a vegetarian group.

Not only vegans and vegetarians are concerned about industrial farming methods.

I think, you didn’t close off a quote somewhere AndChomskyMakesThree, which made the whole thing look like a quote.  I’ve done that before.

WD,

Well, I don’t see that we disagree. I think there are lots of good reasons for not eating meat, and so I don’t. I was only saying that I didn’t find the Darwinian rationaly expecially compelling. There are plenty of others, and the balance is sufficient for me to feel that not eating meat is the best choice for my circumstances.

Given the choice of satisfying non-meat alternatives that are fully sufficient to meet the needs of human nutrition, why eat meat at all? There is sufficient research indicating that greenhouse gas emissions from livestock is much greater than carbon based emission output contributing to increased global warming. And cattle grazing and soy crops grown to feed cattle are the greater culprit of deforestation in the Amazon Basin than oil exploitation. (Google up a search for author John Robbin’s for more info).

Mr. Simonton,

It seems to me that what you’re criticizing in your post isn’t meat eating per say, but factory farming. The Weston Price Foundation, which is VERY pro-meat consumption, is also very ANTI feeding soy to cattle and raising them in a confined, unnatural manner. Consider this excerpt from an article there titled ““Milk: It Does the Body Good?“:

If I were to ask you to picture a cow, you would most likely see in your mind a cow grazing in an open pasture, like one you’d probably seen before on a small family farm. That’s a lucky cow, compared to most of the cows bred for dairy production in this country. The majority of commercial dairy cows don’t have the luxury of grazing on open fields. Instead they are kept in intense confinement, in individual stalls, on hard cement floors, hooked up to milking machines, forced to produce milk ten months out of the year, in an overcrowded building. This is how the average commercial dairy cow spends her short, miserable life—42 months on average, compared to 12-15 years for a cow on pasture.

That certainly doesn’t sound like a pro-factory farming sentiment. Yet it’s author, nutritionist Lori Lipinski, most certainly isn’t a vegan of vegetarian.

On the same website, Jim Earles, also a meat eater, writes in “Letter to Vegetarians”:

we oppose Genetically Modified foods
we support the ideals of organic and biodynamic agriculture
we oppose unsustainable methods of corporate agriculture, which drive out small farmers, thrive on the use of pesticides and chemicals, deplete the soil, produce an inferior product and cause tremendous harm and suffering to countless animals
we support efforts to obtain quality foods in a whole state directly off of local farms, thereby supporting small farmers and local economy, and also by-passing the ridiculous state of affairs wherein most modern organic foods travel further from the farm to your dinner plate than do their conventional equivalents
we oppose food irradiation
we believe that the typical diet of the average (meat-eating) American is extremely unhealthful
we believe that the practice of raising vast amounts of grains to feed the cows that are turned into fast-food hamburgers is wasteful and destructive of our environment (Raising a cow on grains is the equivalent of raising a child on a diet of candy. The cow will get very fat—which is what drives the practice in the first place—but it also makes the animals unhealthy, makes them produce copious amounts of methane, and greatly diminishes the nutritive value of the milk and meat which are obtained from it. Exclusive grass feeding makes for a happy, healthy animal, provides superior nutrition in milk and meat, and naturally limits the number of animals that may be raised in one location.)
we believe that Americans today consume far too much sugar and empty calories, especially young people and especially in the form of soft drinks
we believe that the answer to a great many of the health problems people are experiencing today is to radically change and improve our diets…although our group would prescribe very different sorts of changes than would a vegetarian group.

Not only vegans and vegetarians are concerned about industrial farming methods.

AndChomskyMakesThree,

Thank you for your reply and the time you took to post the cruelty-free farmers quotes. You make a good point concerning the awareness of animal rights and health concerns and, from a vegan point of view, humanity is at least headed in the right direction.

“If man is not to stifle his human feelings, he must practice kindness towards animals, for he who is cruel to animals becomes hard also in his dealings with men. We can judge the heart of a man by his treatment of animals.”  Immanuel Kant

Regards,
WD

WD,

Well, I don’t see that we disagree. I think there are lots of good reasons for not eating meat, and so I don’t. I was only saying that I didn’t find the Darwinian rationaly expecially compelling. There are plenty of others, and the balance is sufficient for me to feel that not eating meat is the best choice for my circumstances.

I see your point Brennen, and I agree as well. I see vegetarianism as an evolutionary progression based on ethical choice. Civil societies in the Darwinian sense are highly evolved considering our brief history on the planet. From this perspective, to even be having this conversation is amazing!

“As long as men massacre animals, they will kill each other. Indeed, he who sows the seeds of murder and pain cannot reap the joy of love.”  Pythagoras

Regards,
WD

.

I’ve been reading along on the three threads that have veered toward vegetarianism, animal rights etc. I’m also quite familiar with Peter’s opinions from reading him for years, I also had a long time partner who was active in PETA. I also find myself with the same concerns, which are how polarizing these debates can become even when a shared interest in conservation and animal welfare are at stake and agreement is obvious, also with the little focus on how to move people towards actively limiting meat consumption and what changes will need to take effect that go beyond just not eating meat.

William, is that quote from Pythagoras?

Yes, Luke you are right, I stand corrected. The quote was from Pythagoras; “For as long as men massacre animals, they will kill each other. Indeed, he who sows the seed of murder and pain cannot reap joy and love.“ Thanks for the heads up.

Another quote by Pythagoras; “As long as man continues to be the ruthless destroyer of lower living beings he will never know health or peace. For as long as men massacre animals, they will kill each other.“

.. The majority of commercial dairy cows don’t have the luxury of grazing on open fields. Instead they are kept in intense confinement, in individual stalls, on hard cement floors, hooked up to milking machines, forced to produce milk ten months out of the year, in an overcrowded building. ...

a little levity
http://assets.comics.com/dyn/str_strip/000000000/00000000/0000000/200000/60000/6000/600/266604/266604.full.gif

I realize this thread has cooled off, but I listened to the podcast late and I’m looking for insight into this issue for my own personal peace of mind (I’m a heavy-duty meat eater and have my qualms about it sometimes, and this podcast stirred those up).

The crux of my question: what axes of species “interest” do we define as relevant for deciding what we can eat?

The basis of my question is this moral continuum and we have to pick a point in which we feel an “animal has interests”.  Makes sense, but as someone points out later, “interests” is pretty broad and (I argue) multidimensional, and conflicting within a species (let alone an individual organism or the larger ecosystem is survives in). 

Wanting an animal—that has the ability to suffer—to avoid that suffering is just one interest of many.  We also, as someone else said, seem to amplify that suffering argument the closer this creature is to us in the tree of life, or at least to the degree they register with us emotionally (dogs and cats).  (As Dennis Leary said, the cute ones get to live.)

So I’m left with lots of conflicting points:

* Yeast and oats have interests, which include reproduction.  On that scale, their association with us makes them incredibly successful compared to their wild cousins.  Why do “fruitarians” refuse to eat them?  Because eating requires the death of the individual organism.  When is killing the organism acceptable for us to survive?  How about for our pleasure (goose liver pate? leather shoes)?

* On that same point, domesticated cattle is incredibly successful, as far as selfish genes go.  But eating requires the death of the individual organism, and often the suffering of that organism.

* Although I’m skirting with the naturalistic fallacy, let alone sounding like Desiderata; don’t I have a right to be here?  If so, shouldn’t I be allowed to slap that mosquito on my arm?  Or eat that apple, even if it means a mold spore might die the in process?

I realize that, as humans, we can now decide to not eat the meat that’s been a part of our diet as part of our evolutionary upbringing and use alternatives.  I’m left back at square one when I think of eggs and cheese and soy, as it just seems to be picking and choosing our reasons to assuage our conscience on just one (suffering, which is controllable). 

Saying that we have no special place as humans is fair to the argument.  Saying that we still have *a* place is also fair.  Projecting ourselves onto every living creature (asking “How we would feel if we were that chicken/pig/cow/carrot/locust/shaft-of-wheat?“ at every turn) seems to be overkill.  Eating our neighbors is also not appropriate (at least until I get a bigger barbeque).  How do I decide eating my neighbor is bad, assuming I conk him on the head first to avoid suffering, but eating a carrot is ok?

Yeast and oats have interests, which include reproduction.

Yeast and oat organisms don’t care about reproducing, because they don’t have the hardware needed to care about anything.  I guess you could argue that their selfish genes have an interest in reproducing, but that’s stretching the definition of “interest”, considering that they also are non-sentient.  As far as I can tell, if something is not sentient, it has no interests.  Correct me if I’m wrong about that.

Why do “fruitarians” refuse to eat them?

Because fruitarians don’t base their ethics on interests.  Fruitarianism is a prescriptive ethical system that states that all killing is wrong, either for religious reasons, or in order to preserve some mysterious life force that’s present in all living things.

When is killing the organism acceptable for us to survive?  How about for our pleasure (goose liver pate? leather shoes)?

I am rare among vegans in that I believe that killing animals for food is a moral continuum.  Different animals have different modes of suffering, and different levels of sentience.  Considering this, eating a fish is morally different from eating a pig, which is morally different from eating a chimpanzee, which is morally different from eating a human.  Note that this is not speciesist, because the considered difference is interests, not valuing one species over another for arbitrary reasons.

Although I’m skirting with the naturalistic fallacy, let alone sounding like Desiderata; don’t I have a right to be here?

I think you do, and if you find yourself in a really unusual circumstance, e.g. on a deserted island with only seafood to eat, you should do just that, rather than starve.

If so, shouldn’t I be allowed to slap that mosquito on my arm?

I’m skeptical that the mosquito has the hardware needed to process pain in a way that’s more than reflexive, so I don’t see any problem with swatting it.  I could be wrong, though.

Or eat that apple, even if it means a mold spore might die the in process?

Mold is almost certainly non-sentient, so bon-appetit!

Bopdiddy,

Well, I have often argued that moral codes or values are inherently subjective and relative, but they can be rational and consistent. I agree with flib that a continuum of relevant interests based on the ability of a species to experience and care about its own life and interests is reasonable. Without a nervous system, yeast and oats have little reasonable claim to rights, IMHO. With a nervous system that is highly developed and capable of sophisticated thoughts and feelings, humans have a strong claim to be treated as if their interests mattered. So do primates, cetaceans, and perhaps others. It doesn’t have to be speciesist in that a totally unrelated organism from another planet could be viewed, ethically, as a “person” if it manifested cognitive traits justifying this designation.

The more different from us phylogenetically a species is, the harder it is to assess their capacity for suffering and joy and their thoughts, if any, about their own interests, but I think it can be done. In the meantime, a certain precautionary approach seems reasonable. The similarities of the apparatus for feeling pain between us and other mammals is so great, it seems reasonable to assume they experience it much as we do, barring good evidence to the contrary. Sure, this privileges sentience, emotion, and so on somewhat arbitrarily. But all values have some subjective, arbitrary component, and I think such a system is a least rational and can be applied in a consistent and somewhat objective way to individual cases.

As for the philosophical question, “do I have a right to protect my own existence at the cost of suffering or death for others?“ I don’t think there is a “right” answer. One can make a strong case that no living thing has any rights at all, but so what? None of us are giving up our sense of entitlement to our own existence anytime soon, so we might as well accept this as a given. My goal is not to live without causing death or suffering, because this is impossible and because I accept my own innate drive to live despite this fact. Instead, my goal is to minimize the harm I do as best I can. One of the arguments against vegetarianism is that it must somehow inevitably lead to an extreme attempt to never take life. BS. This is a strawman only real to people with an axe to grind against vegetarianism and the most extreme folks among vegetarians. I save spiders when I can and crush them when I think I have to, I kill plants all the time to eat, I support and destroy micro-organisms in my GI tract in the millions, and if I were on a desert island with nothing but live kittens to eat, I don’t think I’d starve. A sensible life requires a certain pragmatism, and the perfect should not be the enemy of the good. If I limit myself to free range eggs and dairy, I think I’m doing better for myself and the rest of the world than if I didn’t, but I’m under no illusion that I can or should live without ever doing harm to any living thing.

The ethical issues are complex, despute the protestations of some on both sides, and absolute perfect answers only exist in fantasy and religion. In the real world, we make compromises and do the best we can.

Kudos for making the effort.

Bopdiddy-

I raised questions about the ramifications of considering “interests” of animals (and therefore, plants) earlier in the thread as well. Sentient or not, it is clear many plants defend themselves from predators by various means such as becoming poisonous. These arguments were brushed off by vegans as taking it to an extreme, which is a bit amusing for a vegan to say.. but still the extreme is only so accessible because the “interests” argument is just too broad to be useful, as-is.

re: “selfish gene success”
This is an interesting issue to me as well because there is a desire among some vegans (some!) to paint human consumption as a morally evil force in a black&white;sort of way while most people agree its going to be a mixed bag. In reality human “consumption” or industry has led to massive success for many species by any measure. For example, trees. At least American trees, which have tripled in number in the last hundred years. This is a direct result of a paper goods industry existing. Dogs & cats have certainly done better by and large than their imagined wild counterparts would have. Some in this very forum will argue it is better for animals to cease to exist rather than remain domesticated because extinction is better than “slavery” I suppose.

For my supermarket ethics, I’m really just concerned with suffering and to an extent quality of that animals life. I don’t want chickens in shoe box cages etc.., beyond that I have no compunction about meat.

Sentient or not, it is clear many plants defend themselves from predators by various means such as becoming poisonous.

If you insist that this represents an interest, that interest belongs to the genes, not the organism.  To respect that interest, avoid eating every last member of that species.

Still, I think it’s a stretch to call it an interest, unless it belongs to an organism that has the capacity to care one way or another. 

For example, trees. At least American trees, which have tripled in number in the last hundred years. This is a direct result of a paper goods industry existing.

I think most people averse to clearcut logging are averse to it because of the negative effects it has on the ecosystem, not the effects that it has on the trees or tree species themselves.

Dogs & cats have certainly done better by and large than their imagined wild counterparts would have. Some in this very forum will argue it is better for animals to cease to exist rather than remain domesticated because extinction is better than “slavery” I suppose.

I think you’re describing vegans who are vegan for reasons related to rights theory, not vegans who are vegan for utilitarian or other consequentialist reasons.  Singer is in the latter camp, and I don’t think I’ve heard any arguments in this thread representing the former camp.

I am personally moving towards vegetarianism more out of health reasons (high LDL cholesterol in spite of otherwise good health) than for ethical or moral reasons, but no doubt the gory online videos my kids have shown me from PETA, have also had an effect on my desire to change my diet—but I can’t help thinking how much attitudes have already shifted about whether animals have interests or just thinking about how attitudes towards treatment of animals have changed in the last 30 years or so. When I was young, people might say it was wrong to needlessly abuse animals, but dominion over the animal world was taken for granted!

On a recent Philosophy Bites podcast interview with Don Cupitt, he mentions this change in attitude, along with changes in thinking about race, gender roles and acceptance of homosexuals, as examples of how moral values have changed in recent decades, even among some of the religious people who think they have a timeless, transcendent standard of ethics.

Still, I think it’s a stretch to call it an interest, unless it belongs to an organism that has the capacity to care one way or another. 

I tend to agree. The problem is that “capacity to care” was not offered as a criteria in the “interests” argument.

I think most people averse to clearcut logging are averse to it because of the negative effects it has on the ecosystem, not the effects that it has on the trees or tree species themselves.

This is a separate issue though..  we can have tree farms (and do) without losing ecosystems. The fact that this distinction is not made by the more eco-zealous is kind of the point.. along with the fact that there are beneficial aspects to commercial industry- I’m glad there are more trees.

Dogs & cats have certainly done better by and large than their imagined wild counterparts would have. Some in this very forum will argue it is better for animals to cease to exist rather than remain domesticated because extinction is better than “slavery” I suppose.

I think you’re describing vegans who are vegan for reasons related to rights theory, not vegans who are vegan for utilitarian or other consequentialist reasons.  Singer is in the latter camp, and I don’t think I’ve heard any arguments in this thread representing the former camp.

Not in this thread, but in others.. here is a quote. Whatever philosophical box you want to put Singer in, he has certainly advocated for Rights for animals.. which for practical matters make me limit the import of the distinction. This quote below comes from BaiB in this thread.

No one can be happy and fulfilled unless one has a right to self determination.  Animals used as pets have no choices about their lives.  They are treated as property.  This cannot be morally justified.

I am a new listener to this podcast and just got to this one with Peter Singer.  I have read all of the posts on this topic and although it appears that no one has been active on this board for well over a week, I felt I needed to add my two cents (for that is all it may be worth .

First of all, in listening to the interview with Peter Singer, I thought it was clear: he doesn’t have issue with how animals are killed so much as how they are raised and under what conditions they live.  He advocates vegetarianism because from an evolutionist/humanist/non-religious/we have no God-given dominion over animals point of view, animals should be treated so as not to suffer by any measure.  Personally, this was one of the better arguments I have ever heard to advocate a meat-free diet as that is where he goes with his argument.

Secondly, I think much of the discussion on this forum diverged into the ethics of eating meat versus the ethics of vegetarian/veganism; whether it is moral to kill animals for food, whether it matters or not that we clearly evolved to be omnivores.  There was also much digression into economical, ecological, and simply practical issues surrounding meat production.  There were also various attacks on the character and/or general wierdness of meat eaters versus vegetarians. 

As to my second point, I don’t think these advanced the discussion that the original podcast put forth, which brings me back to my first point.  Mr. Singer was promoting vegetarianism because animals suffer in large agricultural farms before they even get to the slaughter.  Whereas I stated before, this was one of the better arguments I have ever heard, it still falls very short of being THE definitive argument for everyone to give up meat.  I think Mr. Singer should therefore be spending his time and energies on making the lives of meat animals better.  (Though could it ever be made ideal, I have serious doubts, but when did Utopia exist for anyone?)  I feel moved by his argument to advocate better farming practices, to vote for laws that push for this and whatever else I can realistically do to help our animal brethren, but giving up meat is not one of them.

Truth be told, anyone who thinks they can get through a single day without using animal products is deluding themselves.  There are many reasons and justifications for giving up meat but people who have made that choice simply because they don’t want to be an active participant in the cruel use of animals have a lot more to give up.  Ok, so avoiding meat in one’s diet is the simplest, most visual means by which to avoid animal product use, but so many industries and products depend on the byproducts of animal processing that for vegetarians to tell others that they are cruel animal abusers is to be hypocritical.  (NOW read this:  I have read the posts, I know no one here was saying that, not directly to be sure, but many vegetarians have when in a social situation where meat eaters are consuming their meal in front of them, “...you go ahead and eat that poor animal’s flesh, I for one don’t want any animals to die for me”  how many times have I heard this?? and often by one wearing leather shoes and a wool sweater!). 

Take one small example, stearic acid.  It is used to make rubber, cosmetics, shampoos, soaps, candies, and many other products.  Whereas it can be made from vegetable fats, if we went to this source only, would my morning bagel cost as much as a steak dinner?  I can imagine so, especially if we went to alternate sources for all animal products.  In a world where grain prices have already risen in part because of the divergence of corn into ethanol, do we really need to go there with this argument? 

There are dozens upon dozens of animal products used for many things other than food. 

For another example, let us talk about leather.  There is no doubt that many products have been successfully invented that can replace leather for many things, but not for all.  As a paramedic, I would never enter a crack house without my full-grain leather boots on!  Oh, I tried synthetic material boots in the beginning as I didn’t have the money for the leather ones, but these broke-down after months of near daily use, went into the landfill, causing many other problems of course, and I just had to keep replacing them.  The leather ones I subsequently bought lasted for three years, then only needed new soles and lasted many more years.  Feel free at this point to do the math when one considers the hundreds of thousands of paramedics, firefighters, police officers in my one little example. Also from my paramedic experiences, I have yet to see clothing that will better save the skin of a motorcyclist in a highway accident from being cheese grated on asphalt than full leathers.  Those unfortunate enough to be wearing anything else will often end-up in a burn unit, leading one to imagine all the products, expense, suffering, waste, etc, that could have been saved by the skin of an animal.

My point is thus, give up meat if that is your choice, advocate that people can very well thrive on a vegetarian diet, work towards making farming practices as humane as possible, gratefully eat lab grown meat,  but be realistic and honest as to who is actually using animal products and how much.  To suddenly end the animal product industry would be calamitous to any economy.  Animal products are ubiquitous, meat just a part of it.  As my mother, the daughter of a dairy farmer, said, “when a cow is slaughtered, we use everything but the moo”. 

Now, if people didn’t eat meat would there need to be nearly as many animals raised to get the byproducts we need for everything else?  I honestly have no idea.  That is why animal welfare HAS to be the focus.  It seems for the near future anyway, animals will still be killed for human use/consumption.

Ok, so I went past my two cents, thank you for your attention and time,
E.M.

E.M,

Very clear, well thought-out contribution. I would disagree on a few points, though. You skirt close to letting the perfect be the enemy of the good. The fact that giving up meat doesn’t completely eliminate one’s contributions to the evils of industrial agriculture isn’t a strong argument against doing so. Every contribution, particularly in the economic arena, is worthwhile. And while reform of industrial agriculture is also a useful contribution, the overall argument is that giving up meat, if a significant part of the population could be induced to do so, would do a lot more to reduce suffering and be a lot simpler. There would be the need for a much smaller population of cows/pigs/chickens and so on since meat is the centerpiece of the industry, with many of the other things you cited secondary products that are far less profitable for agribusiness.

And many of the products other than meat you discuss are only in use because farmers, who generally work on tight margins, are always seeking ways to eek a little profit out of otherwise useless by-products of their main income sourse: meat. Society would undoubtedly find alternatives for most if necessary, and I don’t accept the “economic calamity” argument against trying to do so. No one is talking about eliminating a major industry overnight. But just as the fossil feul industry has to go eventually, and it will be less damaging if we phase it out over time than if it simply collapses when we someday run out of oil, so the agribusiness can be reduced or eliminated with minimal dislocation if it is done slowly and sensibly. Not that it will be, of course, but it is certainly possible. .

So while I agree there’s lots to be done besides just choosing not to each meat, I don’t think you give a compelling argument against doing so. I certainly support realistic assessments of the situation and eschew hysterical, excessive rhetoric. Vegetarianism suffers mightily from the image given it by fanatics, but as this thread shows there are plenty of rational arguments that can be made in its favor. And the alternative positions seem to boil down to:

1) I don’t feel animal suffering is morally compelling and I like eating meat. i.e “Why all the fuss?“
2) Eating meat is natural and/or biologically necessary
3) Animal products ar so integral to our economy and way of life that they cannot ever be replaced or eliminated

I may be missing some other points, but this seems the core set of arguments against vegetarianism, with #1 in the lead by far. I don’t find any of them powerfully pursuasive, though I also don’t see any point in arguing against #1 since one can’t often make soemone else find a moral issue meaningful if they don’t.

Anyway, thanks again for a useful contribution to the conversation.

I think Mr. Singer should therefore be spending his time and energies on making the lives of meat animals better.

He does that; in fact, he’s gotten a lot of heat from the animal rights movement for working for animal welfare.  They criticise him for advocating “happy meat” (their term), and they criticise him and other “welfarists” (another of their terms) for not demanding immediate abolition for all animals.  Singer has been instrumental in bringing real (though incremental) improvement to the living conditions of farm animals, especially egg-laying hens.  In the 1980s, he worked with Henry Spira to successfully push the cosmetics industry to develop testing technologies that don’t require animals.  I think Singer would say that he advocates vegetarianism because truly acceptable living conditions for all farm animals would be unsustainable as long as demand for meat is as high as it is.

Truth be told, anyone who thinks they can get through a single day without using animal products is deluding themselves.

It sounds like you’re saying that if you can’t achieve a state of perfection, your efforts are worthless, or at least delusional.  Veganism is not about perfection, it’s about chopping things off at the knees.  By eating a plant-based diet, buying leather- and wool-free clothes and shoes, and buying animal-friendly toiletries, I can reduce my demand for animal products by (just guessing here) over 98 percent.  This sounds like progress to me, and it sounds pretty cynical to say that the effort is worthless because it doesn’t produce perfection.

For another example, let us talk about leather.  [clip examples of leather’s superiority]

I wouldn’t begrudge the use of leather today by those who need it (a vanishingly small percentage of those who use it), but do you think there’s some magical quality of leather that makes it better than synthetic materials in the long term?  The reason that your synthetic boots fell apart is because synthetic footwear is made cheaply, for a demographic that’s looking to save money.  As more people move away from leather for ethical reasons, demand for high-quality synthetic materials and products will increase.

Now, if people didn’t eat meat would there need to be nearly as many animals raised to get the byproducts we need for everything else?  I honestly have no idea.

If people stopped eating meat, but doubled down on the cheese pizza, omelets, and leather couches, you would probably have a good point.

mckenzievmd,

Thank you for your support, I do appreciate it, but *sigh*  I think my point was missed.  Must work on making myself more clear.  I don’t disagree with anything you say in response to my post.  One day, years, possibly generations from now, our descendants will undoubtably wonder how could anyone have ever eaten animal flesh or worn their skins?  They will wonder at the thinking that allowed it.  Just like today we can look to the past and wonder how could anyone ever enslave another human being (though, where I currently live and in places I have been, one can see that the slave trade is alive and well, just looks different than the American history textbook pictures)?  I thank you also for your comparison with the fossil fuel industry.  That is a very parallel topic.  A huge industry, integral to our everyday lives, that must nonetheless become obsolete someday, replaced with alternatives.  For this, and other reasons, I heartily applaud the efforts of scientists and the advances of science in general to come up with the solutions we so desperately need to save us from ourselves.

My point, that I will attempt to make more clear, is really quite a small one, and not meant to be revolutionary or open the eyes of anyone to some new, not previously thought of idea.  I was just frustrated in reading the line of dialog in this forum that diverted away from the original argument put forth in the podcast.  People were attempting to re-hash many of the tired, old arguments between vegetarians and meat-eaters, which has raged for years and is not likely to come to a happy conclusion any time soon.  People have their reasons for eating what they eat.  I won’t attempt to persuade anyone to change, or even understand why I choose they way I do,  just as I wouldn’t ask anyone to understand why I love my car. (ok, so that was a bit smart aleky, one is a serious subject with real issues to debate, the other a simple matter of opinion).  Try as I might, I could never justify why I choose to eat meat that would satisfy your mind.  As you listed the three most common reasons why people say the use of animal products should continue, I think it is clear, my decision to do so, comes down to, “I like to, and I don’t like enough vegetables, that I would starve to death, thats why, neener neener neener” at least, that is how I am imagining it sounds to you. 

I was trying to point out that Mr. Singer, in the podcast, was advocating eating a vegetarian diet while talking about how inhumanely animals are being treated, but that his argument, and I will say again, one of the most compelling I have ever heard, was ONLY to advocate treating animals humanely.  It does not follow, that because animals are not currently being treated as well as we would wish, we should all become vegetarians, and in the same vein give up animal products.  His argument as it was given on the podcast was about treating animals better but he was using it to push forward a vegetarian ideal.  He even said, spelled it out, that he doesn’t much care how an animal is killed, but that it should be allowed some happiness in its lifetime.  Ok, but where does this mean that we can’t eat it once it is dead? 

Whereas no one, that I personally know and have talked to about this, would ever say that it doesn’t matter how animals are treated. Being kind to animals is clearly a common goal for most.  And maybe if we all did give up meat, the animal processing industry would eventually go away, we would find alternatives to animal products that I could happily use to protect my feet from used needles and broken crack pipes.  Change comes slowly, but it does eventually come.  I regret that much of my original argument (although I stand by every word) spent much of the time talking about why we can’t give up animal use overnight.  I know that no one on this forum would think that it could or even should be done that way, and I think that that was seized upon as my main argument.  I guess, I got caught up in “them fighting words” of the fringe groups, that get my hackles raised and felt it was my turn to get it off my chest so-to-speak.

Thanks to everyone for giving me my turn.  Again, where I currently live, I am constantly reminded how precious free speech really is!

Yes Noble 10,jump in here,I dare ya’.You’ll be doing more than just sighing after a few rounds.Between this thread,and another one with a similar vein,I covered all the points you raised.All of them.(perhaps my delivery was less tactful,but who cares,it was understandable).
Trying to argue with people who claim pets are unethical,then admit to having pets,is very frustrating.
Trying to argue with people about the “ethics"of eating meat,when more than 3/4’s of the planets population eats meat in one way or another is very frustrating.
We evolved as primates to have opposable thumbs,I suppose that it’s just social conditioning that makes us use our thumbs everyday.Perhaps in the future we can discover a way to rid ourselves of thumbs,and the unethical use of thumbs thereof.
The ethics behind animal cruelty is something I would love to address.There is no place for animal cruelty.
Much of any argument surrounding this topic would center around the grey area concerning draft animals,or food animals.When does the cruelty begin for a Plow Horse,a beef cattle destined to be slaughtered?
Yes, are current methods of providing meat and by-products disgusting and hidden from public view?Yes they are.But that’s life in the big World.Hell,we let millions of children starve,we have factories that manufacture bombs and missiles for the sole purpose of killing other people.Obviously animal rights are going to take a back-seat to peoples problems.

Noble10,

I appreciate the clarification. I guess the question is just whether change comes if no one changes what they personally do. You seem to view the gradually abandonment of animal products as a probably inevitable historical process, yet you feel like it doesn’t have anything to do with convincing individuals now to give up eating meat. I guess I see the latter as a necessary part of the former. Now, I’m no militant, so I don’t spend much time trying to convince people who’ve already considered and rejected my arguments. But here, we get the chance to share perspectives and refine our own ideas, so I do see some value in going through the arguments pro and con about eating meat, even if minds are seldom changed.

Anyway, I appreciate your taking the issue seriously enough to give a thoughtful opinion. As you can see, some people seem to feel there’s no point in even talking about it until we’ve solved what they consider to be more pressing problems. No reason why we can’t think about or care about more than one thing at a time, in my opinion.

Yes Noble 10,jump in here,I dare ya’.You’ll be doing more than just sighing after a few rounds.Between this thread,and another one with a similar vein,I covered all the points you raised.All of them.(perhaps my delivery was less tactful,but who cares,it was understandable).
Trying to argue with people who claim pets are unethical,then admit to having pets,is very frustrating.
Trying to argue with people about the “ethics"of eating meat,when more than 3/4’s of the planets population eats meat in one way or another is very frustrating.
We evolved as primates to have opposable thumbs,I suppose that it’s just social conditioning that makes us use our thumbs everyday.Perhaps in the future we can discover a way to rid ourselves of thumbs,and the unethical use of thumbs thereof.
The ethics behind animal cruelty is something I would love to address.There is no place for animal cruelty.
Much of any argument surrounding this topic would center around the grey area concerning draft animals,or food animals.When does the cruelty begin for a Plow Horse,a beef cattle destined to be slaughtered?
Yes, are current methods of providing meat and by-products disgusting and hidden from public view?Yes they are.But that’s life in the big World.Hell,we let millions of children starve,we have factories that manufacture bombs and missiles for the sole purpose of killing other people.Obviously animal rights are going to take a back-seat to peoples problems.

I believe the claim that people here think pet-ownership is unethical has already been repudiated.

I find the attitude that we must deal with one problem at a time to be very flawed. I see it all the time when average joes ask things like “Should we be spending so much money on NASA when there’s so many problems on Earth?“ Obviously, spreading your resources too thinly isn’t good, but it’s just as obvious that we can accomplish more than one thing at a time.

Contrary to some, I found Singer’s evolutionary argument to be compelling. He’s not talking about an inconsistency between evolution and the ability to eat meat. He’s talking about what it mean for our ethics. If you accept evolution, then you believe that humans gradually evolved from non-human animals. If you take naturalism to be true, then you don’t think humans have a soul or have any other means of invisible superiority over other animals. From these two premises it is indefensible to ignore the possible feelings and interests of other animals.

One thing I’ve noticed here is that many arguments against vegetarianism have mirror images in arguments against atheism that many here already know are faulty. The argument that we have historically (and prehistorically) been meat-eaters sounds like the argument that we have historically been religious so it must be a something good or necessary. The argument that animal products cannot easily be removed from use and so vegans are fooling themselves sounds like Chris Hedges’s blatant false notion that the New Atheists are dangerous utopians. The argument that vegetarians are elitists or arrogant has an extremely obvious mirror with all the media and op-ed columnists claiming that Dawkins and Harris and Hitchens are shrill and fundamentalist.

Even though there’s been 11 pages of discussion, I haven’t seen anybody comment on Singer’s remarks that pro-life meat-eaters are oxymorons. I thought about the corollary: are vegans all pro-life? It’s really hard for me to picture, because I think of pro-life as exclusively rightist and veganism as exclusively leftist. But a pro-choice vegan seems to shoot herself in the foot if she thinks that humans have no right to dominion over animals and yet she has dominion over an unborn fetus.

Lots of reasonable caveats are available if one takes a rationalist point of view, though, so that being pro-choice and being vegetarian are not contradictory. And maybe those who are fanatical enough about animal rights, like ALF, are also wacko enough to be pro-life.

I think the abortion issue has bearing because I’ve talked with at least two vegetarians who said they wouldn’t eat an animal even if it were something as dumb as a jellyfish. This seemed ridiculous to me, even though I think vegetarianism is more reasonable overall. If you wouldn’t eat something as dumb as a jellyfish out of consideration for its interests then it is blatantly contradictory to also be pro-choice.

I thought about the corollary: are vegans all pro-life? It’s really hard for me to picture, because I think of pro-life as exclusively rightist and veganism as exclusively leftist. But a pro-choice vegan seems to shoot herself in the foot if she thinks that humans have no right to dominion over animals and yet she has dominion over an unborn fetus.

This recently came up in another forum; I’ll just copy/paste my reply from over there:

Sentience is a continuum, and I’ve read that a two month old human baby is not as sentient as an adult dog. I’ve also read that the first sparks of sentience in humans begin sometime during the second trimester, and gradually increase from then on. So my tentative conclusion is that a human fetus has an interest in not being made to suffer sometime late in the second trimester, and certainly in the third trimester, and any abortifacient administered during those times must be humane in order to be morally acceptable. One difference between human fetuses and adult animals is that the fetus has not known the experience of living in the world, so it has no interest in continuing that life through its natural course.

I think the abortion issue has bearing because I’ve talked with at least two vegetarians who said they wouldn’t eat an animal even if it were something as dumb as a jellyfish. This seemed ridiculous to me, even though I think vegetarianism is more reasonable overall. If you wouldn’t eat something as dumb as a jellyfish out of consideration for its interests then it is blatantly contradictory to also be pro-choice.

This is a good point, assuming that you really mean “non-sentient” and not “dumb”.  Singer addresses the question here:  http://www.wesleyan.edu/wsa/warn/singer_fish.htm , concluding that there’s a good chance that mollusks don’t have a capacity for suffering, but he comes down on the side of giving them the benefit of a doubt.

I would not fault someone who eats mussels, clams, and oysters, but I wouldn’t do it for a couple of reasons.  The first is economic - I don’t want to financially support companies that deal in seafood.  This is also one of the reasons why I don’t eat free-range eggs or dairy - because those same farms also deal in meat.  Secondly, I don’t eat mussels for the same reason that most recovering alcoholics don’t drink near-beer - it’s not in my best interest to maintain a taste for seafood.

[I find the attitude that we must deal with one problem at a time to be very flawed. I see it all the time when average joes ask things like “Should we be spending so much money on NASA when there’s so many problems on Earth?“ Obviously, spreading your resources too thinly isn’t good, but it’s just as obvious that we can accomplish more than one thing at a time.

Even though there’s been 11 pages of discussion, I haven’t seen anybody comment on Singer’s remarks that pro-life meat-eaters are oxymorons. I thought about the corollary: are vegans all pro-life? It’s really hard for me to picture, because I think of pro-life as exclusively rightist and veganism as exclusively leftist. But a pro-choice vegan seems to shoot herself in the foot if she thinks that humans have no right to dominion over animals and yet she has dominion over an unborn fetus.

Lots of reasonable caveats are available if one takes a rationalist point of view, though, so that being pro-choice and being vegetarian are not contradictory. And maybe those who are fanatical enough about animal rights, like ALF, are also wacko enough to be pro-life.

I think the abortion issue has bearing because I’ve talked with at least two vegetarians who said they wouldn’t eat an animal even if it were something as dumb as a jellyfish. This seemed ridiculous to me, even though I think vegetarianism is more reasonable overall. If you wouldn’t eat something as dumb as a jellyfish out of consideration for its interests then it is blatantly contradictory to also be pro-choice.

We humans deal with many problems simultaneously.Worldwide problems and personal problems.Collectively and personally.My intent was not to ascribe preferences to problem solving.Triage it could be called.My mention of other worldwide suffering phenomenom was only to analogize the introduction of ethics into these “phenomenom”.
I challenge anyone to give a scenario in which animal husbandry,or the mass industrialization of food stock creatures,or the use of animals for power,or the use of animal by-products for industry could be tamped down,or eliminated.
People find the methods of these above mentioned systems abhorrent.
Can anyone envision a world where there are no animals used for the benefit of mankind?Save for adored pets,show horses,a few well cared for milk cows,and a quaint camel used to carry wide eyed tourists through the desert.How about a nice cottage with a vegetable garden,and some chickens running around,their only purpose to lay eggs,at their leisure.Do we allow a pig at this cottage?A pig who is fed it’s favorite foods,and cared for by a small child who loves it and brushes it and talks to it?
How about a stream running by this cottage.Can the people fish this stream,and eat what they catch?You know what the pig is for don’t you?But it is quaint.A nice pig,well cared for.This chubby little pig even knows why he is held by these loving folk.And for the return of these loving peoples good favor,this loving pig will go willingly to the slaughter.Is this ethical idealism?
Now,envision a world where the population is well proportioned with the land area,and accompanying resources.Most people live in these cottages,and share with one another.Oxen are willing to pull the plows,they are not whipped or harried.They pull because they like to plow.
Also,in this wonder land,unfortunately,there is war.Constantly.People make swords and cannons.They kill one another regularly.They rape and pillage other villages.They burn other cottages down with the sleeping occupants inside.They sneak into the other folks villages and dump feces and dead people into their wells.
But in all this carnage,the opposing forces never harm animals.They never hurt or kill the others peacocks,dogs and horses.Some even rescue the pigs from the enemies pens,and set these pigs free,because in their village,they don’t eat meat.
But all the while,the people of this land treat animals with loving care.Granted there aren’t many animals they can interact with,because most are wild.Just a few fringe groups who use animals to varying degrees.Some do eat an occasional pig or chicken,but these were well cared for.When the milk cow dies,of natural causes,there are great meetings to discuss whether the animals hide will be tanned and used for some ceremonial,special item.
Do these factions ride horses?
Now in todays world,with the Darfurs and the Hurricane Katrinas,the Pakistan/India question,the rekindled Cold War between Russia and the US.Iraq and Afghanistan,The legacy of WWII and the Search for oil in places of animal sanctuary.The dumping of hazardous wastes into the air and water.The deforestation,the continuing prolification of nuclear weapons etc…etc…
How would it be best to introduce a model of ethics concerning the animals?How can we interweave these ethics into human-nature?
Are we just searching for a way to improve conditions at feed lots?Are we searching for a way to vegetarianize the diets of people?
Are we going to sever all ties with animals?Milk,cheese and eggs are OK,but nothing else?Will the planet be able to adjust to this?
Salmon is ok,but no pork chops.
Here’s one.100 years from now most of the planet,somehow has abolished all forms of animal usery.No meat,no leather or furs,no feathers,no animal derived chemicals.No milk,no eggs.No pets,no domesticated horses or songbirds.No zoos or aquariums.
The UN has created a special military task force,and they are out there,hunting down the last vestiges of peoples who are using animals for their own benefit.Education failed for these people.They wouldn’t listen.They wouldn’t understand the value of letting animals exist in this world on their own,without human intervention.

Several countries are also undergoing economic sanctions,because the bombs they dropped,missed their intended human targets,and accidentally killed a herd of wild musk-oxen and several birds and turtles.

VYAZMA<

I just don’t see the conflict you are talking about. What does Darfur and Iraq have to do with what people in the industrial world choose to eat or not eat? How do the human rights and economic tragedies around the world somehow interfere with making an ethical case for not eating meat? If you aqren’t making the argument that we should focus only on 1 problem at a time, what is the conflict here? All I see in your post are strawmen and hyperbolic scenarios that have nothing to do with what Singer or most of us in this thread are talking about.

VYAZMA<

I just don’t see the conflict you are talking about. What does Darfur and Iraq have to do with what people in the industrial world choose to eat or not eat? How do the human rights and economic tragedies around the world somehow interfere with making an ethical case for not eating meat? If you aqren’t making the argument that we should focus only on 1 problem at a time, what is the conflict here? All I see in your post are strawmen and hyperbolic scenarios that have nothing to do with what Singer or most of us in this thread are talking about.

The conflict is that as long as we humans are willing to harm and kill each other collectively,then we will cast an indifferent eye towards animals collectively.That is what we are concerned about isn’t it?I mean it’s nice that you,and many others,have chosen a path that reduces or eliminates the suffering of animals,but in the worldwide sense it really is no different than any other ethical struggle.The vast majority of humans never go out of their way to harm animals.They do rely on an economic food supply chain that is somewhat essential,and somewhat ingrained.
I don’t know what the heck a “strawmen” argument means.I do find it hard to believe that you can’t see the connection between humankinds struggle with one another,humankinds destruction of the environment, and the relegation of all other species on this planet.And therefore the relegation of your arguments thereof.

VYAZMA<

I just don’t see the conflict you are talking about. What does Darfur and Iraq have to do with what people in the industrial world choose to eat or not eat? How do the human rights and economic tragedies around the world somehow interfere with making an ethical case for not eating meat? If you aqren’t making the argument that we should focus only on 1 problem at a time, what is the conflict here? All I see in your post are strawmen and hyperbolic scenarios that have nothing to do with what Singer or most of us in this thread are talking about.

The conflict is that as long as we humans are willing to harm and kill each other collectively,then we will cast an indifferent eye towards animals collectively.

It’s probably much worse than you surmise. We will probably cast an indifferent eye toward animal-killing long after we’ve arranged for relative peace among ourselves. After all, our freedom-fighting forefathers who wrote the “all men are created equal..“ bullshit were fine with having slaves and waging a slow, inexorable genocide of the natives. We’re not a species good at connecting the inconvenient dots.
Even worse? There may be no moral or rational basis for not killing animals even in the future’s war-less utopia.

Might as well woefully lament, only when men stop writing bad checks and farting in the car can the brutality of animal slaughter end