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I'm gonna cut you a bit of slack here because I don't think you're a P&D regular, but that's a worrying philosophy to have - and one I don't suspect you'll stick to if you expand its scope and think about the ramifications. i.e. You've got an iPhone; I want an iPhone; I'm bigger than you; Dog-eat-dog world.
Dude, come on. Completely setting aside subjective opinion of a problem's importance, do you really think a practical approach to debating and solving problems is for everyone to focus on one problem at once? We're also trying to establish, via reasoned discourse, whether people even think this is a problem. And why not use this opportunity to hone your critical thinking skills before applying them to the "big problems".
With all due respect, I couldn't care less whether you'd get upset if I questioned your meat-eating ways. We're here in P&D to, in part, debate topics. If you get upset when people questions your decisions or moral choices, then here really isn't the place to be. I'll respect your opinions if the reasons for you holding them are sound, but appeals to emotion aren't gonna wash.
The way I look at it is this: To be morally comfortable with the killing of an animal I'd have to be able to justify why it was permissible for me to take the life of that animal. And I don't think I can. Since the killing of animals, and the subsequent consumption of their flesh, isn't the only way I can survive, then I think inherently a moral question is raised.
I believe that I have a responsibility of consideration toward the animals which I come into contact with. If you take that as a given, then I think the corollary is: to what extent do I afford these animals my consideration, and how should these considerations manifest in my actions? I should, in my view, afford animals the same equality of consideration that I would extend to a human; I see the species barrier as too arbitrary a line to draw when deciding on my actions toward other animals, and would instead rather use something more concrete, like capacity for suffering. Of course, the equality of my actions will not always be the same, for example: I may only give a pig straw when considering his bedding requirement, and I might sort myself out with a nice pocket-sprung mattress - but the important thing was the equality of consideration.
Now when it comes to killing an animal for food I take into account a number of factors: my ability to lead a perfectly healthy lifestyle without consuming meat; how animals are raised for food; the quality of animal welfare that my budget can buy me; the suffering and stress caused to the animals when they're taken to slaughter; the lifespan of the animal, and how much of a potentially happy and fulfilling life an animal could lead if it weren't to be cut short. And all this leads me to the conclusion that my dominion over that animal isn't such that I can ignore all these factors and eat it, purely for my pleasure. The scales just don't balance for me.
Sorry, long post.
I'm comfortable with eating meat, but that doesn't mean I don't care about animal welfare. I know I can survive without it and I certainly eat to much but I think I have a good grasp of the reality of life (and death) and it doesn't bother me.
I've grown up working on farms, shooting, and fishing, and the people that I've grown up with me have to an extent shaped my attitude.
I know alot of veggies will find it hard to comprehend but farmers in my experience do genuinely care about their livestock - though in all honesty I've never met any farmer whose reared livestock in anything but excellent conditions. My parents years ago bought two cows for the field we used to have and reared them for meat. I was involved in looking after them and cared a lot about their welfare, still when it came to slaughter I knew that's what we had them for. They had a short but ultimately easy carefree life.
Now Io know that's not how all meat is reared. I'm not arguing that we should be able to keep animals in shit conditions - infact I'm very passionate about it. I'd be far less passionate about it if I wasn't a meat eater and if I didn't go shooting and hunting. The way many people treat animals and eat meat without second though for where it's come from is immoral, but I don't include myself in that. I'm happy to kill it ASWELL as eat it - I know and recognise where it comes from and it doesn't bother me. I see it as quite normal,
I agree.
This is where I disagree. You yourself make a distinction about us being 'moral' animals - animals aware of the results of their actions. But then you say we you can't find a reason why they should be treated any differently?
The two cows in the field we had never had ambitions, never worried about other cows, never knew what their purpose was and never knew they were going to die (let alone what they were going die for, from or when).
This partly on the way to what my justification for eating meat. I don't treat other animals liek human beings, but that does not mean I don't consider their welfare. The quality of life not the manner of death (and by whose hands) is by far and away the most importanct factor for me.
A lot of animals are raised in perfectly good and 'happy conditions. I'm of the opinion if you can't afford 'happy meat' then you should go without. It should be a treat. All the meat I buy for home cooking is sourced locally from the local butcher or my friends, or I kill it myself. I admit when it comes to eating out at resturants d I don't bother with asking where it's sourced from, maybe that's something I could improve.
When it comes to my hunting or fishing my quarry suffers far less then they would from any other means of death apart from being hit by car. They don't suffer in death. They die quickly which is something all of us should hope for.
Life span is not something any animals worry about. They're not that self aware. They don't think "I havn't acomplished in my life half of what I meant to and it';s tragic I'm dying so soon".
And the potential for a fulfilling and happy life wouldn't even exist for most of these animals if there wern't meat eaters. If everybody in the country was a veggie then we the only place in the country you's probably be able to find a cow or a sheep is in the zoo, but I don't see that as much of an argument for or against eating meat. If we didn't eat meat it wouldn't have a life at all and then on the flip side it wouldn't have to die either.
I shan't elaborate too much more on where we disagree, as I think I'll probably end up becoming a little repetitive.
I didn't argue that I don't think animals should be treated differently to humans; I argued that it was equality of consideration, not action, which was important.
I also think that just because a pig, for example, doesn't have hopes and aspirations (or at least certainly not of the complex kind we could directly empathise with), that this grants us the position of holding the end of their life entirely at our whim. I'm also not on board with the concept that because an animal doesn't know the end is coming, that somehow grants us animal-killing carte blanche. The argument that animals don't have the higher brain functions or moral capacity that you and I possess, isn't contentious. I just don't see how you get from lack of mental prowess to being able to kill them for food - It doesn't seem to be a logical progression.
Some of us just don't want to eat it. Whether that's because we disagree morally, because we are morally stronger, because we have different views.... so what?
If you put half of the time you put into arguing on this site into improving your REAL LIFE, you would probably better off.
Like Skive, I'm going to cover this with the disclaimer that I'm completely trollied right now. But seriously...... a lot of you could be out in the real world, achieving a lot more.
Not trying to offend anyone here. Peace. X
Do you still stand by this in the sober light of day?
I can distinguish between them but, I don't think I care about that difference in terms of killing them for food. If I had to roughly kill a gorilla or a carrot, I would pick the carrot, so I do register their welfare as more important on one level. If the choice were between cleanly killing the gorrilla or carrot for food, I'd go for the one I wanted to eat most taste and nutrition wise.
Are you serious?!
An adult gorilla has about the same level of intelligence as a four year old human child. I'm guessing you wouldn't think it was ok to cleanly kill a four year old if you quite fancied eating one, would you?
A four year old gorilla yes, a four year old human- no.
Well I'm not going to invite you to babysit without stocking the fridge...
The point is, I don't think it's ok to eat gorilla.
But if someone else does, I think they are rationally committed to thinking it's ok to eat a child too. Unless they can give a good reason why they are different.
A group of children have been running a 'school farm' as a science project. As part of it, they reared a lamb, named Marcus. When the time came, the children were asked to vote on the fate of the animal. They voted for it to be slaughtered, as you would normally do.
Since then there has been uproar from some parents, animal welfare groups that should know better, and even Paul O'Grady. Even facebook groups demanding the animal be saved. Finally the other day the headmistress announced the lamb had been sent to the slaughter, and some people are very angry indeed.
Well, it's not often that I agree with anything written in the Telegraph, but this article sums it up very well for me...
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/personal-view/6194972/The-death-of-Marcus-the-sheep-was-a-lesson-to-us-all.html
On the topic of disagreeing with the meat industry and the way it treats animals, if you are a vegetarian you are contributing to it. Just because you aren't eating meat, doesn't mean animals aren't being killed for your pleasure. You don't know where your dairy and eggs are sourced and even 'free range' can be unreliable. I can see from a perspective of keeping your own animals (if you're a welfarist), but otherwise you have no idea.
I understand vegetarianism (in the UK) from a environmental perspective, but not from an animal rights perspective.
I don't socialise with people who have an issue with my veganism, or who bang on about it because I find it patronising and like they don't respect me. I am cool with questions, or friendly debate, but I don't wish to hear people's opinions on how I am not living up to the standards they set for me.
Live and let live.
ETA: And I have become a lot more adventurous with food since changing my diet too!
I will sum up simply with this. Like the meat-eating population, the vegetarian population also has its fair share of cunts who insist on shoving their way of life down everyone else's throats. That is all.
I actually found it to be one of the better P&D threads. There was a little silliness here and there, and of course a few names were called, but on the whole I quite enjoyed it. It's an emotive topic with a few juicy moral underpinnings - which is good for ol' P&D!
First you should explain why they are the same, we even give them different labels to help us differentiate- 'gorilla' and 'human', saying I would eat a 'gorilla' means just that, not that I would also eat a 'human'.
I don't think humans and gorillas are the same. But they are same in all the morally relevant characteristics - capacity to suffer, capacity to think of themselves as a being with an identity which persists throughout time and extends into the future.
Proof?
However I'm pretty sure it's been established that the great apes have this. Apparently pigs do as well - they are aware of themselves as beings who will exist in the future, and so have some idea of the need to avoid future suffering.
I would like to see proof before I swallow any of that.
I'm quite happy to accept that a pig knows it's a pig, and that they are pretty intelligent as animals go but to go as far as saying they can understand what they are being bred for? You think they have aspirations to be a great pig?
I'd liek to know how that would be prooved.
Well they are a different species for one. There is also the chance of contracting a Mad Cow like disease called Kuru through Cannibalism:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuru_(disease)
Though if my life depended on it I would have no hesitation in eating human.