Animal rights is one of the biggest swept under the rug ethical issues of our day, and one in which I see lots of smart rational people stumble over themselves to justify their habits (or uncomfortably turn a blind eye). Recommended listening is Peter Singer's Philosophy Bites interview, which links animal suffering to utilitarianism: http://philosophybites.com/2008/05/peter-singer-on.html
That's a tricky question. Start with a different, and probably easier (for many people) question: where do humans get rights? There are many possible answers. Some people think our rights come from God (or gods), others take different approaches. Ultimately it's just a matter of deciding what is important and "true". You have to invent your own axioms in some sense, I think. So, once you've done that, you can use those axioms to decide whether or not animals have rights.
These rights apply only in human - animal relations and not animal - animal relations. Carnivorous animals and other plants are free to do as they like to their fellow beings.
But, from what I know animals rarely abuse other animals for no reason. Usually there is a good reason for them to attack another animal like food, territory, self defense or if they are ill( elephants in musth, rabid dogs and wolves).
What am trying to say is that animals get rights from the same place that we get rights, laws and social norms.
Animals are farmed and killed for us to eat, the least we can do is to treat them with respect while they are alive.
From what I recall there are definitely cases of animal animal abuse - as in one animal torturing another for amusement. For the life of me I can't remember the exact incident. I do know of 1 monkey which decided to tease the ever living daylights out of a tiger/lion though.
Cats have a habit of playing with their food while their prey is still alive. If that cat was a human, then what they do would probably be classified as animal abuse.
Is that really abuse? Play is one of those behaviors that animals exhibit to prepare for dangerous encounters. Arguably, that is just as important to their species survival.
Rights are the correlative of duties and obligations. If people have a duty not to X, then who ever that duty is owed to now has a right to X.
As a being capable of moral reflection, I think I have a duty not to inflict, or support the infliction upon, other beings capable of feeling pain and suffering. Thus, other beings have a right not to be inflicted with pain and suffering, from me at least.
If I am about to demolish a house, it is my moral duty to ensure that the house contains no occupants. It is not sufficient to claim "as far as I know the house is empty, therefore I needn't check".
Similarly, if you make any moral claim predicated on the assumption that animals do not experience pain (or experience it to a lesser degree than humans), the burden is on you to demonstrate as much.
If you do not take religion or the supernatural as an axiom, you face a very difficult proof due to the physiological and evolutionary similarities between humans and other animals.
No, just as it's not immoral to eat animals. It's about how you treat animals.
Anyway, you're going to have a problem proving that plants feel pain since they lack all of the elements that cause the experience of pain in animals, such as nerves and brains.
Read my comment more carefully. I didn't make that claim.
I claimed that if you make a distinction in your morality between animals and plants based on their ability to feel pain, you have that duty. (Note that this is a claim about the consistency of a morality, not about one particular moral system.)
If on the other hand your morality does predicate your moral right to eat something based on its ability to feel pain (as our ancestors did), then there is no such duty.
(Of course there is also a grey area between these -- a morality based on a creature's ability to express an experience of pain is more broadly accessible.)
Instead of defending our current habits with theoreticals, shouldn't we determine our actions based on the information we have available to us, with respect to the alternatives?
I know your joking, but the premise of your original comment was that morality is black and white. If this is true for you, then yes, you'd have to voluntarily stop eating. :)
Personally, I take the position that everything I do probably has a negative impact somewhere. Taking the car, bus, train, or staying at home all have consequences for the environment. While I don't lock myself in my apartment, I do regularly review my lifestyle choices and see if they align with my values.
The same is true of the food I eat, both from an environmental point of view as well as how much suffering is involved.
Nobody and nothing gives you rights. You are born with them, and its up to you to assert them for yourself.
Nobody is obligated to protect your rights for you (and vice versa), but they can do so voluntarily.
Looking at it like this, it makes animal rights a matter of morality.
An animal cannot defend its own rights, so they depend on humans to voluntarily defend their rights for them. Nobody is obligated to do so, but its reasonable to believe the world would be a better place if we treated animals better.
This is a pretty common view -- and it's how the language of rights works, really (you have the right to X, all humans have human rights, etc.), but it's not true.
The language is misleading.
Think about what rights you have when you're alone. None whatsoever -- rights only apply when you're interacting with others!
Rights are behavioral rules that we agree on, encoded as if they were inherent to people because it's simpler to think of them that way (and our society benefits from the misdirection, on the whole).
Rights are things that thinking beings can "respect" in others (and follow the behavioral rules), or not -- this works the same for respecting human or animal rights -- but they are a completely human construct.
How do you know animals are born with such rights (or if humans are, for that matter), and if they want to exercise them the way you exercise what you believe to be yours? A somewhat facetious take on it from Chesterton:
But what do we mean by making things better? Most modern talk on this matter is a mere argument in a circle -- that circle which we have already made the symbol of madness and of mere rationalism. Evolution is only good if it produces good; good is only good if it helps evolution. The elephant stands on the tortoise, and the tortoise on the elephant.
Obviously, it will not do to take our ideal from the principle in nature; for the simple reason that (except for some human or divine theory), there is no principle in nature. For instance, the cheap anti-democrat of to-day will tell you solemnly that there is no equality in nature. He is right, but he does not see the logical addendum. There is no equality in nature; also there is no inequality in nature. Inequality, as much as equality, implies a standard of value. To read aristocracy into the anarchy of animals is just as sentimental as to read democracy into it. Both aristocracy and democracy are human ideals: the one saying that all men are valuable, the other that some men are more valuable. But nature does not say that cats are more valuable than mice; nature makes no remark on the subject. She does not even say that the cat is enviable or the mouse pitiable. We think the cat superior because we have (or most of us have) a particular philosophy to the effect that life is better than death. But if the mouse were a German pessimist mouse, he might not think that the cat had beaten him at all. He might think he had beaten the cat by getting to the grave first. Or he might feel that he had actually inflicted frightful punishment on the cat by keeping him alive. Just as a microbe might feel proud of spreading a pestilence, so the pessimistic mouse might exult to think that he was renewing in the cat the torture of conscious existence. It all depends on the philosophy of the mouse. You cannot even say that there is victory or superiority in nature unless you have some doctrine about what things are superior. You cannot even say that the cat scores unless there is a system of scoring. You cannot even say that the cat gets the best of it unless there is some best to be got.
That wouldn't fall under the umbrella of "just because you can". Just because you can means, you don't need to, but you do it anyway, because you can.
I'm also arguing that it is not necessary to be cruel to animals, even if you have to eat them. Beating and torturing a chicken doesn't provide any more protein than if you treated it humanely and slaughtered it in a quick and painless way.
You can even argue that being a part of our diet actually benefits the species as a whole. You don't see cows and chickens on an endangered species list, but you don't see them in the wild either.
To go even further, we will eventually have the ability to create synthetic meats that don't require us to slaughter animals.
It could apply to anything, I've heard of vegans who go as far as not using anti-bacterial soap because they don't want to kill the bacteria, or not eating honey because they consider the honey as stolen property belonging to the bees.
My point is in order to do something you wouldn't like done to you to something else, not out of necessity, but just because you feel like doing it, you may have missed an update or two from evolution's package manager.
To answer your question, first you'll have to tell us where you think humans get their rights from. For me, I'd say that animals, humans and the general respect for all life comes from (not so)common decency and/or religion.
Your question misses the point. Animals may not have the rights we grant a human, some would argue that they have no rights. But that does not mean that we then have the right to treat that creature with arbitrary cruelty. In fact, we don't allow arbitrary violence to be performed on inanimate objects, for instance you might get in trouble for damaging the Statue of Liberty. We decide what we will allow based on our own convictions, morals, customs, religion, etc. Many, likely most, people would agree that torturing animals,even those destined for slaughter, is wrong.
In fact, we don't allow arbitrary violence to be performed on inanimate objects, for instance you might get in trouble for damaging the Statue of Liberty.
That's not a right of the object, it's a right of the people who own the object. If I make a replica of the Statue, I can do whatever I please with it, including burning it to the ground.
Oh man, I love this discussion but I'm late to the party.
Before the animal question -- where do people get rights?
"Rights" are absolutely not inherent to anyone or anything... though it serves our society if people believe that rights are natural and inherent. The language of rights reinforces that view, but it's obviously false if you think it through; they're a language construct around a behavioral guide.
In reality, a single entity (person/animal/etc.) has no rights whatsoever. What "rights" do you have when you're alone? They only serve any purpose when you're interacting with others.
Rights are something a thinking entity recognizes (acts as if they exist) in others. If you "recognize" a right in another entity, you guide your behavior to avoid violating that right.
So generally non-humans aren't capable of respecting human rights -- your dog can't personally understand that the mailman has a right to unhampered movement in public walkways. But that's irrelevant to whether "animal rights" can exist -- if a thinking person recognizes that an animal has a right (to no undue suffering, whatever), that animal now has that right.
In the eyes of that one person, anyway.
The animal rights struggle is generally about getting more people generally to respect rights in animals, and then enshrining those rights in law (to force recognition of those rights even in people who don't intellectually agree the right is merited).
I love thinking about this stuff because the language is so misleading -- I was confused about rights for many years, before I finally sat down and mapped out what actually happens IRL when various rights were respected, violated, etc..
The same place we do, natural law, note that under natural law we can do whatever we please. The underpinnings of non-fiat social contract is the idea that we give up certain rights to the state, namely the right to commit violence against others, in exchange for protection of the remaining rights.
In all honesty though we get our rights from wherever we can convince others that we have those rights, for example in the UK if you're born to the right parents you have the right to live in buckingham palace. They claim those people get those rights from God.
Still, they do feel emotions such as joy and fear, and physical sensations such as pleasure and pain. And how we treat them does have an effect on which of these they are going to feel.
Would I go out of my way to cause pain to an animal? Would I go out of my way to prevent pain to it? On what basis should I decide?
I think everything we do says, "this is who I am". That is, through every action (or inaction), we make a statement about how we perceive of ourselves. If I perceive of myself as a kind person, I would be conflicted about doing anything that I know will cause pain to another sentient being. If I have low self-esteem and don't think of myself as a particularly nice person, I might not make much of an effort to regulate my behavior to account for the effect it might have on others.
So, I would say that we forget about "animal rights", and think only about whether our actions truly reflect the kind of people and the kind of society we wish to be.
From a utilitarian standpoint, lets suppose that a human can feel +/- 100 utils, a pig can feel +/- 50 utils, and a chicken can feel +/- 20 utils. Even with these anthropocentric weightings, factory farming might be causing enough suffering to switch life on earth from net positive happiness to net negative.
Because they have a nervous system and the same brain as you as far as registering nerve impulses. If you've ever had a pet, they give all indications that they are suffering when they're in pain. If they give all indications of experiencing pain and suffering, though they cannot communicate this to us, the simplest explanation is that they feel pain and suffering.
There are lots of ways to express how we should treat eachother (and animals), other than "Rights".
Being able to think outside of the existing paradigm of rights based thinking is not something that is "wrong" it is actually more 'considered' than knee jerk assertions.
I'm completely with you on your first sentence. I experience this first hand on a regular basis. Ironically, you point to Peter Singer after mentioning animal rights and you specifically point out his utilitarian stance. Singer (despite having brought many people into the Animal Rights world) is a utilitarian. He does no believe in rights. In fact, he has recently softened his stance even further - see the "Paris Exception".
I agree with you, but I only intend this as an introduction, a jumping off point. Regardless of the utilitarianism, the idea of extending our ethical frameworks to animals because they suffer, then considering evidence that they suffer, is a compelling proposition.
> Animal rights is one of the biggest swept under the rug
> ethical issues of our day, and one in which I see lots of
> smart rational people stumble over themselves to justify
> their habits (or uncomfortably turn a blind eye).
Another, probably larger one, is abortion. Otherwise progressive, considerate people rationalizing that it's alright to kill people just because they're not born yet. It's generally inconsistent with the other positions people who support abortion take.
The death penalty and locking up a fifth of the young black population is generally inconsistent with the other positions "people who oppose abortion" take, yet I don't see them doing much about that. If we can stop talking in such broad generalizations now...
Nobody who will be born in the future has been born yet. By choosing to use a condom or birth control, are we killing those people? What's the difference between a sperm being inside an egg and outside other than some sort of religious spiritual mumbo jumbo or philosophical possibility? At what point does a fertilized egg become a "person," and who are you to determine that?
All those progressive people you condescend to are not "supporters" of abortion. Almost nobody "supports" abortion, and hardly anyone is ok with late term abortion.
Those progressive people are generally thinking beings who have morality. They think about things rather than accepting an arbitrary criteria such as whether someone is born or not. For most it is whether the bundle of cells is a sentient being capable of experiencing, something a zygote most certainly is not. A zygote is not a person by any reasonable standard. It has the potential to become person with lots of help from its environment, as does every combination of viable sperm and egg on the planet.
Every sperm may be sacred, but every sperm is not deserving of equal protection.
>>> Those progressive people are generally thinking beings who have morality. They think about things rather than accepting an arbitrary criteria such as whether someone is born or not. For most it is whether the bundle of cells is a sentient being capable of experiencing, something a zygote most certainly is not.
It doesn't seem that way.
Most efforts to legalise abortion are based on the argument 1) that women have a right to do what they want with their own body, or 2) that abortion has social benefits. And since the progressive side of politics is making no real effort to stop abortion after the embryo has become a foetus and developed a nervous system it's probably safe to assume that women's rights and social benefits are far more important to them than whether an foetus is 'sentient being capable of experiencing'.
> that women have a right to do what they want with their own body
This is not much different, since as a non-sentient individual, the fertilized egg is a part of the woman's body. I can't speak for others, but I certainly look for the line when a foetus becomes a "person."
I'd like to see some surveys on how many Americans support abortions in which terms and why, but haven't found any.
> that abortion has social benefits
This is a supporting argument only relevant when the underlying action is ethical.
Executing stupid people may have social benefits, but it is not ethical.
>>>I'd like to see some surveys on how many Americans support abortions in which terms and why, but haven't found any.
Yeah, me too. Anecdotally, most people seem to be fine with first trimester, reluctantly accepting of second trimester, and against third trimester (except where the mother's life is in danger).
1. Mathematical difference.
As another commentator pointed out, a zygote is genetically unique. This means it has rare information, as a result of combinatorics. Destroying it has interesting impacts:
A. Destroys information from the universe.
B. Destroys /genetic information/, which is an evolutionary mechanism.
C. Slows evolutionary development, as beneficial mutations are already rare enough - increased abortions also increase the loss of a punctuated-equilibrium event.
This "combination" and "potential" as you note, is strike-on why it deserves equal protection and ought to be viewed as sacred. (Not sperm, but the zygote)
2. Social Difference.
Now note, I'm not suggesting that every such zygote /will/ be that Einstein, but historically greatness have come from unexpected circumstances. Da`Vinci was a bastard child of a female peasant, aborting him (if it was modern day) would have been strategic move to save the face of his more upper class father.
A. Preemptively: yes, the chances of any Churchill is also chances of a Hitler. Admittedly, an abortion might also have destroyed the next genocidal tyrant. But ironically, this is not a justification - because it is that very act of destruction which is why we hated those men in the first place.
B. A society with no Hitlerbabies is also one that will never have Churchills. A society with Hitlerbabies is also one with Churchills. The former society is definitively doomed, the second at least has a chance of succeeding. And as entrepreneurs/hackers, we know that this risk variable is the key which makes and breaks.
Conclusion: A universe with more information is genetically more fit for evolutionary survival. And a universe which has a plus-sum of social progress is probabilistic in success, versus a neutral or destructive society as having an absolute convergence of failure. The difference between even just only 1% and a NULL solution is an infinite gap.
I don't see that as morally relevant, despite your consequences.
Cancerous cells in my body are genetically unique human tissue. I fully support their eradication.
But maybe they're not human enough. If I use genetic engineering to combine my thumb with a tiny snippet of DNA from Joseph Stalin, so I could show off my eclectic "Stalin Thumb," it would be genetically unique human tissue. My fancy thumb has no rights equivalent to those of other humans.
Say I'm in a lab that catches fire. Because of the massive imminent backdraft, I have time only to save either the old lab tech, Fred, or a shelf of petri dishes containing 10 million blastocysts. According to the unique genetic material hypothesis, if I don't watch Fred writhe in flaming horror, then I'm a monster, committing one of the worst genocides in the history of the planet. (Note that a blastocyst has fewer cells than the brain of a fly.) I would contend that there is no amount of blastocysts you could save to justify letting Fred die in a fire.
I can't accept "genetically unique human material" as the sole determinant of moral responsibility, it just causes too many problems.
You only talk about the effect of the aborted. For 2, it's worth mentioning that people who raise children at young ages often stop attending school/university/whatever, meaning that sometimes not having an abortion will "abort" your modern Einstein.
Talking about the universe is odd, considering that the issues around abortion mostly affect society, and at a push humanity. On the universe scale, there is no more information destroyed/created by having an abortion than by raising the child. The universe does not know the difference between a human's life and the absence of a human's life.
1C) assumes that the abortee will have more children overall if the child is not aborted than if they are not. This is hardly something that can be assumed, given how people's lives can be massively affected by a child. It also takes a very micro scale view of evolution; I do not think many people believe that adopting a policy of encouraging very large families is something that is good for the planet, and unfortunately for us, what is bad for the planet is usually bad for us (in the long run). However, when you make an argument that appeals to evolution, the long run is the only run that matters.
2's point on historical greatness coming from unexpected circumstances is most likely the product of massive selection bias. I would be very interested to see a study showing significant difference between the distribution of the backgrounds of "great people" and "normal people".
2A equates the destruction in abortion to the destruction in the Second World War.
2B references a society with no Hitlerbabies, which doesn't seem to really be what anyone is discussing here. I think it's fair to assume that there is a near to uniform distribution of potential across aborted children, meaning that there isn't a clear reason why there should suddenly be no Hitlerbabies/no entrepreneurs.
But seriously, how do you write a comment about the affects of abortion on society without talking about the woman who is having the abortion.
Yes, a child that stops continuing their education is subsequently reducing the amount of knowledge in their mind - and thus the amount of new conclusions they could derive (if they bothered to maximize this information). It is unfortunate.
Discussing things in terms of the "universe" is simply with respect to an alternate universe. "One universe no babies are aborted" and the other "Universe where babies are aborted". The former has greater opportunity for outpacing the information than the second. True, my first argument is not making much of a statement about society or morality - just information.
1C) Correct, but it should be noted that there is a difference between the /gain and loss/ of information in a system, versus merely the /total/ information in a system. So here are the differences: "+1 +2 = +3", "+1 -1 +2 = +2", "+2 = +2". While a family might eventually have 2 children after they aborted 1, that is not necessarily mutually exclusive from them having had 3.
I unfortunately have to play the http://overpopulationisamyth.com/ card. While I understand that vast majority of people are frightened about and do not encourage people having "large families", it is all based on an irrational fear originating in Malthus' wrong mathematics. He forgot to calculate for technology.
Technology, interestingly enough, is a direct result of available information within a system, and the collaboration of multiple minds. This really is where the (seemingly obscure?) comments on "universe and information" become consequential to human behavior and development.
2. True -- history is a massive selective bias. And this is my point, great people come from horrible as well as fantastic backgrounds.
2A. No no, I was actually saying that abortion could have killed Hitler in the same way it could have killed Da`Vinci. I was being realistic.
2B. Yes! There is a uniform distribution of a variety of potential personalities (from opposite extremes of Hitler and Churchill, and everywhere inbetween) in the continual development of a human from zygote to adult. You will get diversity.
Abortion, instead, shrinks this diversity. Which is bad, because then you don't get the extremes that push humanity forward (as well as the ones that push it back). But a plus-sum gain is always better than a zero-sum gain. Abortion, by its virtue of destroying information, is a reduction.
Because I am interested in the /origins/ of the woman that was or was not aborted. If she was not born, how can I talk about her?
> "One universe no babies are aborted" and the other "Universe where babies are aborted". The former has greater opportunity for outpacing the information than the second.
This is the basis of your entire position and it is both false and reduces to absurdity.
Having more babies does increase the genetic diversity of humans. Genetic diversity however is not the only or even primary determining factor in just about any measure of human success, including generating Churchills.
Absurdity: This creates an imperative to reproduce as rapidly as possible and maximize genetic diversity, without regard to the resources or environment available. Why is a fertilized egg more valuable than all the unfertilized eggs that could be fertilized - in this framework, they it is equally imperative to bring both to life?
Even if "overpopulation is a myth," that does not mean maximum population is a virtue.
Could you explain why the explosion of human population in the last several thousand years (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Population_curve.svg) is possible, and why it does not imply success? Particularly with the limited resources we've overcome with the advent of crop rotation, agriculture and farming, technology, etc. - and the limited resources today we are still solving for and continually will do so?
It looks like we need a criterion for "success" and "evolution" and "progress"! I would love to hear your input.
The explosion of humanity is possible because of the development of technologies, most importantly agriculture.
Population is certainly a measure of success for a species, however it is not a particularly good one in my opinion.
China's population boom occurred during one of its least successful times in history. China's current success comes at a time of minimal population growth. What's more "successful"? A prosperous society with a static population, or a starving one with a rapidly growing population?
Was China of 1970 more successful than Europe of 1450? It had more people...
That then depends on your definition of success. Which I still would want you to provide.
Plus, I think terms of "success" with respect to a /nation/ is slightly skewed when compared to the "success" of genetics or species. I don't think that is an accurate cross-comparison.
I don't really need a definition of success, but I'd say a society that has a high chance of survival, has minimal suffering, and creates beauty.
Given all those things being equal, certainly a higher population would be more successful. However fast population growth is likely to work against most of those goals.
Does erasing a blackboard or wiping a hard drive destroy information from the universe? I can hardly think of an action that doesn't destroy information. Moving destroys the information of where we were immediately before. Think destroys the thoughts we had prior. Do we have a moral imperative to preserve everything that exists in the present? If so, we are pretty screwed. BTW, information can not be destroyed from the universe, but that's a bit pedantic and beside the point.
> B. Destroys /genetic information/, which is an evolutionary mechanism.
Your body constantly creates unused genetic material in the form of billions of sperm each day. You can argue that a zygote is more complete genetic information, but it is (almost) no more information than the sperm and egg contain separately. Better stop beating it - every sperm really is sacred to the universe.
> C. Slows evolutionary development, as beneficial mutations are already rare enough - increased abortions also increase the loss of a punctuated-equilibrium event.
Seriously? This doesn't deserve a direct response, but it's addressed below.
Apparently we have a moral obligation to produce a maximal number of offspring and ensure that every egg is fertilized. Otherwise, we are robbing the universe of its precious information and stopping our evolution. That is the logical corollary of your silly rationalizations for why you oppose abortion. And if we are supposed to help evolution along, shouldn't we stop allowing stupid and fat people to breed and preserve our resources for the most fit? No, because none of what you say is the basis for any sort of morals - it's complete nonsense.
Side point: Animals kill their unfit young, or young they are unable to care for. Are they also stopping evolution and sinning against the universe? Or are they contributing to evolution by removing poor genes, and contributing to the survival and health of the species by preserving resources for young that can be cared for. Or is evolution an undirected process, which can't be "stopped?" Oh yeah, I forgot.
The second part just reinforces your idea that we are morally obligated to maximize our offspring to create as much genetic diversity as possible, which is on its face ridiculous. Of course, you neglect that genetic diversity is not the only, or even the primary determinate of whether we have "Hitlerbabies" or Churchills. In fact, much if not most of the difference is environmental, which incidentally is helped by aborting babies that will not be raised in a healthy environment, and are therefor more likely to bring violence and suffering to the world. Maximizing births is not the way to produce your uberman.
I'm not sure why I bothered responding, this is such a load of nonsense.
I love how polite you are. Benefiting me with Ad Hominems just makes people not want to like you - which helps me out. Thanks!
A. No, because a blackboard is not a biological organism which is capable of manipulating the environment. When a single man (which required being a zygote first) can invent a wheat that can "save a billion lives" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_Borlaug) - then yes, it matters.
It also matters if they abort his education. Zygotes develop and acquire informtion, and the more of it, and the more collaboration from these humans from zygotes results in fundamentally world changing and humanity-pushing events. (As well as, admittedly, ones that scale humanity back, unfortunately - but abortion is the aid to this, not the contender.)
B. Red Herring, Straw Man.
I like how you switched the argument over to sperms to make a sassy comment but then failed to actually refute the evolutionary mechanics of genetics. Right, because you can't. A subsequent zygote is fundamentally different in its genetic makeup than the one before - so why not keep both?
C. Ad Hominem.
If my argument is "silly" why do you use logical fallacies?
Actually yes, a universe full of more information is simply progressive. Are you now arguing for destroying information? I hope that doesn't mean you are going to delete your comment - that would, afterall, be consistent with what you are proposing. However every new comment you add is providing unique insight - one which hopefully others will analyze and make beneficial conclusions from. In the same way as (A).
Stupid and fat people have actually produced rather intelligent offspring, surprisingly. Do you deny this? Because if you do, we first might need to have a discussion about not being intolerant.
When did I bring morality into it? I never did, just sheer math and evolution. I don't need morality to prove my point.
Are you proposing that we /should/ kill our young and unfit? I suggest not, but you seem to be refuting this - which puts you in an awkward position.
This is what I summarized from your last paragraph:
"aborting babies ... helps [reduce] violence and suffering."
Ad Hominems attacks are against the person, not the idea. Calling you an idiot or ignorant would be ad hominem. Calling your ideas silly is certainly a rhetorical fallacy and not polite, but it's not ad hominum. I stand by my characterization.
> A. No, because a blackboard is not a biological organism which is capable of manipulating the environment.
Your statement was about removing information from the universe, not biological diversity. Evolution is a processes of removing biological diversity - that's how it works, so it may be ugly at times, but hard to call it unethical.
> B. Red Herring, Straw Man. I like how you switched the argument over to sperms
The argument is about removing genetic diversity, and if it applies to zygotes, it applies to sperm. Every sperm has unique genetics, so why not use them all? In fact, lets clone every egg and sperm and generate every possible combination - that will help evolution along. You have to follow statements to their logical conclusion, and in this case, it's absurd.
> Are you now arguing for destroying information?
Destruction of information is as important as creation. Forgetting is as important as remembering. Evolution is a process of natural selection, meaning those organisms not selected are lost. The human brain forgets almost everything it perceives so that it can remember what's important. Death is as important to evolution and species survival as birth. So yes, I am perfectly comfortable with the "loss" of information.
I'm also comfortable with the loss of zygotes before they grow into sentient beings who are likely to lead a life of suffering and imposing suffering on others. Our species certainly does not need genetic diversity at the expense of other qualities.
> Stupid and fat people have actually produced rather intelligent offspring, surprisingly. Do you deny this?
No, but both characteristics are genetically influenced. Smarter people produce smarter offspring, and fat people produce fatter offspring. My point was not to advocate for eugenics, but to point out that if we are trying to help evolution along, that's the way to do it, not making unlimited babies.
> When did I bring morality into it? I never did, just sheer math and evolution. I don't need morality to prove my point.
Ok, so you are just advocating for a maximally dominant species, without regard to ethics. In that case, see above regarding helping evolution.
> Are you proposing that we /should/ kill our young and unfit?
No, I'm not suggesting that. I'm merely following the trails of logic.
> "aborting babies ... helps [reduce] violence and suffering."
Yes, aborting zygotes who are unwanted and are unlikely to be cared for certainly reduces violence and suffering, both for them and for those they will impose suffering upon.
Churchills, as you call them, by and large come from loving, supporting families, have access to opportunity and education, are well fed and sheltered, and have strong communities.
I don't know Churchill's biography, but I'm going to guess he was no gutter baby.
A.
1. Yes, you caught me there. I did say information, and then moved on to genetic information. Your point is valid against "information" in general. So I shall admit to that and move onto the important parts.
2. Evolution is the process of continual genetic diversity - natural selection is the process of eliminating the unfit. So you can't flip this.
B.
Sperms, no. Zygote potential, yes. Therefore I would find it ideal to generate every combination, and play it out. This is not absurd at all - it is Evolution. No?
"Death" see (2)
I'd also like to point out that smart people come from fat people, skinny people come from stupid people, and skinny from fat and smart from stupid.
--> And zow! I believe we've hit the crux of our disagreement. Maximal evolution.
Well, I find the perspective of not protecting the young / killing of babies as an avoidable option, since we are the dominant species, we can manipulate our environment to restrain natural selection in favor of our own.
It appears, that you favor natural selection's brutality against us, and encouraging upon zygotes in unfavorable circumstances, thus diminishing their life.
I would argue against your assertion that "they'd grow up violent and suffering anyways" -- but that appears now to be pointless, since we've found our fundamental (and unfortunate) disagreement.
Thank you for sharing, I'm going to sleep now, it was interesting learning your perspective! (Feel free to reply, just don't bait me to respond back! lol.)
> 2. Evolution is the process of continual genetic diversity - natural selection is the process of eliminating the unfit. So you can't flip this.
> B. Sperms, no. Zygote potential, yes. Therefore I would find it ideal to generate every combination, and play it out. This is not absurd at all - it is Evolution. No?
This is all wrong. Evolution and naturals selection refer to exactly the same process. If you want to separate them, evolution is the result of natural selection over time.
Your concept of "maximal evolution" doesn't make much sense to me. Regardless, the numbers in that scenario exceed the resources of the known universe.
I think we are far better off overall growing our species at a rate we can support with all the benefits of society rather than maximizing our gene pool. In fact, I think your proposition sounds far more brutal than mine. Streets filled with unwanted crack babies and accidental teen mothers sounds nightmarish. I'll take offing some zygotes any day.
No one is arguing about sperms. Even though I consider myself progressive, I have a similar position as the parent comment author. Abortion in 24th week (which is the latest legal date) is WAY too late.
Reasonable people can debate when the latest legal abortion should be. The parent comment simply referred to abortion. Generally those opposed to abortion believe that abortion should be illegal from egg fertilization, or even prior to this by restricting birth control.
I might tend to agree with you that 24 weeks is too late based on a quick look around:
"By 22 weeks, your baby's nervous system completely 'connects'. The vital link between their brain and spinal cord (the brain stem) now matures and many nerve cells make vigorous connections. When this happens your baby becomes capable of recognising warmth, light, sound and pain. While primitive brain waves have been detected in unborn babies as early as 7 weeks, it is not until 22 weeks that sustained patterns can definitely be recorded. Some women will now notice that their baby 'jumps' with a loud sound. "
Without wishing to get into that whole debate, abortion is something that is fairly well discussed here in the UK and as far as I can tell even more so in the US. Most people tend to have some opinion on it.
Animal rights seems to be something that even people who often have strong opinions tend not to discuss.
Some similarities though are that we need to speak out for the people and animals who can't defend themselves and the opposing sides on of each issue tend to talk "past" each other.
I think the debate stems mostly from the imperfections of our spoken language.
What is a human? Is it any biological organism that is genetically identifiable as homo sapiens? Is it our bodies? Our minds, hearts and 'souls'? When asked to draw a "human", a man will sketch a head, a torso, a pair of legs, two arms. On the most basic level we see this shape everyday in our lives - that is what we all subconsciously equate the word "human" with.
Is it all there is to it? Shouldn't we be focusing on what makes us human as the philosophers would see it? Creativity, spontaneity, our thoughts and dreams - everything that goes on in our brains? Consciousness?
There will be more and more debate in the coming years as the concept of what is "human" will come under fire. Technological advancements, medical innovations and strong AI will throw our preconceptions under a train and force us as a species to reconsider, for better or for worse.
Do you see how the abortion debate stems from different understanding of the same concept? There is no right and wrong.
Even if there is no right and wrong, we should still fight for the rights of others - simply for the selfish reason of the future viewing us as freedom fighters.
But that is a horrible reason to fight for the right of others. So why not simply fight for the most abstract definition of "human"?
People used to say only fair-skinned people were human. Now we look back on those people as being bigots for having too narrow of a definition.
Two predictions:
1. The future will look back on people who defined "human" as only being outside the womb (or nerve-braincell-connections) as being narrow minded bigots.
2. The people who fought for the human sanctity of zygotes will also be the people who claim sentient AI are "not human" and are ok to kill or enslave. Irony full circle.
Exactly. I see attempting to draw lines as the issue. Even as considered as they might be, any criteria we set will end up being relative and at least somewhat arbitrary. I don't think you can be "partially" human.
If you're going to presuppose that abortion is killing someone, then your conclusion is logically apparent and uncontroversial. Clearly the issue in the abortion debate is whether it's killing or not, and you're begging that question here in order to seem somewhat smarter and superior, or to start a flame war.
This sort of post is absolutely unintellectual and unacceptable for Hacker News.
If you are going to presuppose that his post was intentionally a flame and act of superiority then your conclusion is apparent.
One which you would agree, should not be posted.
To preempt another meta-reply, I'll also state that the wittiness of this post is uncontroversial, and thus a valid post for the better humor of the community.
Do you think abortion is wrong from the moment of conception? I think a zygote is clearly incapable of experiencing suffering, just like an animal clearly is capable.
I think capability to feel pain is the wrong criteria. Following that line of thinking, would it be OK to kill someone while they were anesthetized? They wouldn't feel pain.
It's the destroying of a genetically unique individual human that is the issue. No matter how far along the continuum of development they are.
Neither your criterion, nor the pain criterion, are meaningful unless you believe in supernatural things like gods or souls. Believing in the supernatural without evidence is not what I would call rational - if you believe that, why not also believe in pixies in your garden, or Russell's Teapot?
Humans are just self-replicating collections of atoms that emerged through chance and evolution, and pain is just an emergent phenomenon formed by electrical impulses travelling over neurons to signal things that we evolved to avoid. So there is no absolute moral reason to protect the coherence of a particular collection of atoms over another, or to favour a doctrine of hedonism over pain.
Ultimately, to optimise for something, we need a criterion on which to optimise. For the above reasons, I consider preserving human biodiversity, or some kind of hedonic pleasure-pain balance as a fairly meaningless thing to pick as a fundamental thing to optimise for in the scheme of things (although it may emerge as a result of another more meaningful optimality criterion).
I consider the diversity of information / knowledge (that is, information that encodes something true about the world, not just random entropy) recorded in the universe in a form that can be processed by intelligently acting constructions to be a more fundamental thing to optimise for. Obviously, picking what to optimise for is completely arbitrary - it is used to justify everything, but it is like an axiom - there is nothing else to justify it in terms of.
Optimising for such knowledge means protecting the intellectual independence of constructions that create, process, and support the construction of such knowledge. Since this is primarily humans at the moment, this means ensuring that humans are not oppressed. Pain and fear of death are means of oppression of humans, and so it makes sense to ensure that living, thinking humans capable of knowing fear and feeling oppressed do not have to fear that they will be subjected to arbitrary death or pain for their intellectual activities.
One way to do this is to strictly enforce a no humans killing humans older then some certain amount of time after conception. If the amount of time after conception is too high, an age at which the person can know that they are at risk of death and fear it, then it will be oppressive. However, an embryo or fetus is very unlikely to be know that abortion exists, or to do anything differently to avoid it, and therefore abortion cannot be oppressive like murder or torture is. Anyone capable of knowing about abortion is too old to be killed deliberately by it.
Perhaps... but birth is at least a bright line with a clear definition, and people are less likely to fear a slippery slope. If 'post-natal abortion' was allowed, I think people might fear a slippery slope where the deadline got later and later (and if it wasn't met with condemnation, some governments might even try to push the deadline out late enough to be oppressive).
Please do not commit a red herring and a straw man by arbitrarily assuming that it would "require gods or souls" without providing any logical reason as to why it would.
2. Combinatorics, Not Morality.
Genetic uniquness is the complete antithesis of a "moral, supernatural, superstitious, spiritual" judgement - it is instead a cold hard evolutionary reason - see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5393246 in these comments for why. In fact, you later support this - as noted below.
3. Pain, Fear, Death, and your Contradiction.
You assert that "oppressing and killing humans" is bad.
Then you invent a new criteria - not based on oppressing and killing humans, but just whether they know they are being killed and oppressed. This has the following errors:
A. It contradicts your objective criterion of information. (Because it logically has to, as seen by 2)
B. It is more subjective, because it depends upon the human being aware of their oppression/death.
C. Not all humans are aware of their oppression or death (gunshot from behind) - your standard would then mean it is okay to let all those people be oppressed and die. I do not think that was what you were going for. (Note: this sounds like a ridiculous argument, and it is because I'm intentionally pointing out the rational absurdity of your vague criterion.)
D. You then conveniently "oppress" a human embryo by assuming that it is indifferent to dying - despite that its biological function is to keep itself alive (whether conscious or not).
E. Yes, so per your very own criterion, there would be no problem with defining that line as "0 days after conception" - so why not? Better safe than sorry.
Most sexually reproducing organisms are genetically unique. That's hardly a basis for a moral judgement.
Ethics and morality in philosophy are generally based on minimizing the experience and perception of suffering, not promoting diversity - though diversity can certainly help reduce suffering.
Please don't make generalized statements that are not true, it is a key indication you have no expertise in the field.
Disclaimer: I have no expertise in the field of ethics and morality.
My girlfriend is however (has worked under Paul Bloom at Yale specifically in moral development, and is in a fully funded PhD program for moral development), and "minimizing the experience and perception of suffering" is not the "general basis".
Note: The author of the parent comment was not trying to make a moral judgement, but a biological and evolutionary one. That abortion is mathematically not beneficial - so there is no need to make a moral argument when there is a scientific one. (That is, not to say, that a moral one ought not be made.)
From the second sentence of the Wikipedia article on ethics, they quote an "expert" (i.e. someone with "expertise") defining ethics as "a set of concepts and principles that guide us in determining what behavior helps or harms sentient creatures".
Certainly you can argue about a billion types of ethical frameworks, some of which may differ from this statement, and you can argue about the definition of ethics and morality. The prevailing basis of morality and ethics is most certainly minimizing suffering. Without sentient experience, ethics are meaningless. That's why in most frameworks we don't worry about the treatment of non-sentient things outside the context of the sentient experience of them, and we debate whether ethics apply to things based on whether they are sentient. Notwithstanding issues relating to these objects relationships to other sentient beings, we don't worry whether it's ethical to sit on a chair or pee in a toilet.
The parent comment was drawing an ethical conclusion from a biological fact, and certainly did not say anything about abortion being or not being "mathematically beneficial," whatever that means.
The unedited version of wikipedia says something different (that is, if we really are using wikipedia as proof).
I am sure you were discontent with the summary, and had to scroll down to some other section which was closer to your bias.
I am also not sure how you can claim to know that the author /was/ drawing a moral conclusion, when he (just as you note about math) never said anything about it.
You asserted morality to trivialize his comment, I was merely pointing out the logical error in jumping from "biology and genetics" to "morality".
Throw morality out the door, and the point still remains.
Unedited version of wikipedia? No idea what you are talking about. Isn't wikipedia all edits? Are you implying I edited wikipedia?
I scrolled down to the part titled "Defining ethics," which happened to be the first section, thinking that would be applicable to defining ethics.
If you read author's comments in the thread, you will see he is clearly making the point that destroying a zygote is a moral issue, as he says:
> It's the destroying of a genetically unique individual human that is the issue
in response to a question about whether destroying a zygote is "wrong".
Throw morality out the door, and he is stating that a zygote is genetically unique for some strange reason in a thread about the morality of abortion.
Besides, his implicit point is also wrong - that a zygote is distinctive in being genetically unique. Each sperm is also genetically unique, so it's a rather inapplicable statement to the context of the thread, unless masturbation is also a sin against the universe.
Mark, your response is dead, so I can't respond to it.
I don't do much voting honestly.
> I don't understand how if one is viewing the subject from a evolutionary genetic perspective, why it is wrong to say that mechanisms that go against evolutionary development (abortion) are wrong
If anything goes against "evolutionary development" it is using technology to increase genetic diversity without regard to fitness.
Anyway, abortion does not go "against evolutionary development" any more than celibacy or monogamy.
Wouldn't that be natural selection, not evolution? Although I know many people are commonly "directional" Evolutionists (forget the technical term) that evolution is progressing int a certain direction, rather than randomly in no direction.
Evolution is natural selection. They are precisely the same theory.
Directed evolution is a whole different ball game that presupposes an active god or a detailed master plan. Either way, that is not evolution as most scientists would view it or as Darwin theorized. And regardless, humanity is not at risk of spoiling such plans.
So the qualitative difference occurs when the DNA has been brought together in some unique combination? Thus, once a zygote is formed, then you consider abortion murder -- but if the ovum or sperm cells are destroyed prior to that then that is an acceptable method of birth control, right?
Jesus what a fucking troll. I can't believe you've garnered so many responses, and not a one is stopping to point out that you're using circular logic.
Gee, how come nobody thinks murdering people is wrong?
Fucking jackass.
If you find I've been combative, it's only because your comment insults the intelligence of anyone who reads it.
This is a derailing of the original conversation. I'm not saying you can't build a moral case against abortion, but it doesn't make sense to do so here. Why?
Because the article concerns attempts to prevent cruelty to animals, ie. pain and suffering. For most if not all of the legally allowed period in the US for aborting fetuses, a fetus doesn't even have the developed nervous system to feel pain, or the basic cognition to experience suffering. So those concerns aren't at all valid.
If someone was making the argument that we shouldn't eat meat at all, because killing animal organisms is wrong, then abortion would be relevant to bring up.
Humans are killing countless numbers of microscopic organisms everyday, both out of necessity and a desire to stay healthy (using antibacterial products and antibiotics), so at least personally i think an edict against killing is a silly idea. Cruelty and killing are not one and the same though.
I wrote about this a while back on a other thread.
One answer I have received to the question about "why is it perfectly moral to eat animals", was that the ecology balance in nature would break down if humanity suddenly stopped eating meat. Not only have we forced our self to be part of almost everything, but our actions have cemented us to a central position. Farmers has chased away predators to the point where hunters are needed to maintain balance in many forests. Some lakes are so polluted with nutrients, that you need to maintain fishing just to keep some species from extincting other less common fish species.
This doesn't address however why breeding animals for meat is fine. This is speculation, but some local farmers might say that as long the animal can live a happy life, then why shouldn't we eat them. The farmer job is to maintain a happy flock of chickens/cows/turkeys, and makes sure it stay healthy and in appropriate size. If they do that, then morality should be on their side.
Farms that do not maintain a happy flock, or farmers that exploit and treat animals cruelly should not be allowed to have animals. We do not need to stop eating meat to get this result, as it just common sense. If a person beats their dog, or strangle kittens, we do not propose to stop allowing people to have cats or dogs. We just put the cat strangler in jail, or have large fines applied to the guilty person. The problem regarding "factory farming" is that we do not enforce such policy.
> was that the ecology balance in nature would break down if humanity suddenly stopped eating meat.
We don't eat tend lake fish, we eat fish from the sea. Fisheries stocks are collapsing from over fishing.
Farming, and farming of animals, has caused extensive ecological damage. Large areas of rain-forest have been cut to provide space for grazing animals; desertification occurs when cattle over-graze areas; some species are lost because land is given to cattle; animal waste in large enough quantities is toxic pollution and some management systems just intensify the problem (eg, Holland had a slurry lake for years); some modern farm animals are over-bred genetic freaks and they wouldn't survive without farmers.
Really, if humans suddenly stopped eating meat and fish over night the environment would probably be better, not worse.
If we suddenly stopped eating meat, we would put several species into extinction. Maybe that would be an acceptable loss, but letting several species go extinct to "prove" how wrong we humans are would not be the way I would promote ecological improvement.
Better to deal with the issues where they are. Over fishing should be dealt with. Countries are just now realizing that the sea doesnt stop at the border. If they could put so much money and effort into ACTA/SOPA, then maybe they could put some energy into fixing this? If US can put countries in a naughty list because some country didn't jump and enforce to US copyright law, maybe EU could put countries on a naughty list because they don't follow follow fishing rules.
I don't know how effective it would be to enforce such a policy. If you put up strict welfare requirements on farmers in your country then people would simply buy cheaper meat from elsewhere without the regulations.
So it's actually more effective to have low welfare requirements that are only slightly better than those abroad in order to keep prices competitive so that people buy from the farms with marginally better conditions.
The only other solution would be to impose a high import tax on meat from countries that did not meet the same standards.
Vegetarians pushed for stricter welfare requirements, but then did not buy the product. English people for a long time were buying Danish bacon, thinking it was higher quality. (Luckily, Danish farmers voluntarily moved to higher welfare standards, and now English bacon has got a better reputation.)
> So it's actually more effective to have low welfare requirements that are only slightly better than those abroad in order to keep prices competitive so that people buy from the farms with marginally better conditions.
I think it's better to have decent welfare standards, and then to educate consumers about the differences between local farms and distant farms. Scandals like the "horse meat in ready meals" help to educate consumers about the importance of knowing where meat is produced.
Import duties are also helpful, but there are problems with world trade organisations.
That's an interesting point, animal welfare seems to be a relatively boolean issue. People who care about it go vegetarian/vegan whereas others will mostly go for cheap meat.
I imagine there are not that many people who want to eat meat but are happy to pay much of a premium for better conditions.
So pretty much all the demand for meat is demand for cheap meat rather than "ethical" meat. Maybe if vegetarians started eating meat but did so by creating market demand for meat produced under better conditions this would actually be a net benefit for animal welfare as some high density farming would be converted to lower density?
So, you're suggesting that vegetarians change their own lifestyles so that those with (to use your example) "less" moral quandaries and more fiscal concerns don't have to change theirs?
Seems like an odd way to go about addressing the problem.
I would fully support a increased import tax on meat from countries with lower standards of animal care. In Sweden where I live, meat produced here is about 2x more expensive than meat made elsewhere. I would also like to see a max amount of h20 in the meat, as meat made from "where it is cheapest" tend to be made of 20% water. Both would help in making regulated meat more competitive against imported unregulated meat.
Our habits, the way of living, having computers, cars, houses, roads... is killing more animals in quantity and variety (and in a more cruel and irremediable way) than they're killed for food.
Everybody in this thread, giving the "right" conditions would kill/eat any kind of animal (I would go farther and include humans [1]). At the end, it only depends on the circumstances (and I would cite Ortega i Gasset here: "I am myself and my circumstances"), and even if we deny it, giving certain circumstances we would have been nazis, assassins, or (almost) anything we can imagine.
At the end of the day, it is just a matter of setting the bar. For some, the logic choice is to be vegetarian or vegan. I have read in this people describing this diet as healthy, and some that don't understand how people eat meat. My answer is that being a conscious choice, I am healthier when I eat meat. Eating grain/soy/dairy products basically affects negatively my body, my mood while eating meat optimizes my lifestyle. So for me the bar is set pretty low. Also, I probably understand healthy living in a different way than most people here, and I am convinced that a vegetarian/vegan diet is far from being healthy.
In any case, my choice goes for grass-fed, range/pasture free animals.
This is actually a very complex issue. I want to share my perspective on eating meat, but before, let me just say that human values change quite often, and it's perfectly possible that 50 years from now, society will judge our meat-eating culture just as harshly as we judge slavery today, and I could be completely wrong.
Now, I think this issue is best split into two parts: treating animals and killing them. The first part is much more clear-cut: many farm animals are treated cruelly (mostly in the dairy and poultry industries), and this should change.
The issue of killing animals is complicated. About a year and a half ago, the magazine I used to work for sent me and a photographer on a hunting safari in South Africa. I went there half expecting to write about the cruelty of man and the beauty of nature; I expected to write about the evils of hunting. Only problem is -- the trip changed my mind. So much so that my vegan editor decided not to run the story (I would share it, only it's in Hebrew and my English isn't good enough for me to translate it all).
1. Pain and suffering
Oh, the hunters (most of them, really) were just as cruel as I had expected. But nature was far crueler. The simple truth is this: no animal dies a dignified death in the company of family and friends. The lucky ones get a bullet or fall prey to leopards. The less fortunate are eaten by hyenas who eat the poor animal, starting at the stomach, while it's still alive. The rest die slowly of starvation, lying exhausted while vultures pick out their eyes and jackals eat their legs.
2. Death and destruction
The main issue, as I see it, is this: every creature, large or small, every organism, living on this planet kills others. From bacteria and plankton to blue whales: their mere existence means death to others. It was once believed that nature is harmonious, that all animals and plants live with one another, each having its place in the ecosystem. But this is false. It was found that if you visit, say, a forest, and take inventory of its flora and fauna, then come back 70 years later, the picture will be completely different. As a general rule, species don't live with other species in harmony. They compete, and some come out victorious. Then you have people. Like all other species, we, too, cannot avoid killing other species. What, you want to eat legumes instead of meat? Well, antelopes cannot live in a field. They can, however, live among free-range cattle. And those antelopes, buffalos and leopards that would die because you want to grow a wheat field will die a far more horrible death than cattle in the abbatoir. You say we turn a blind eye to the pleas of the cows? What about that of the antelopes? When agriculture was invented and people started planting fields to sustain a huge human population, many animals were condemned to death -- and those weren't farm animals.
It's just that we feel disgusted when we see the blood. Western civilization has slowly tried to distance death and gore from our lives. But it's absolutely impossible to avoid it. We can only push it further away from us.
3. Meat
The question of eating meat, while a moral one, is different from that of slavery because of the role meat has played in our own evolution. There is no doubt that meat has played a crucial role (though there is duscussion about the magnitude of its importance). Only meat was nutritionally dense enough to support a very energetically wasteful brain, and said brain evolved (in part if not mostly) for the purpose of hunting animals. It is little wonder that all primitive art depicted hunting. The first stories were about hunting, animals, and the gods, demons and monsters our forefathers encountered while hunting those animals. They were told around the fire where the meat was cooked. Also, there are several cultures that are entirely meat-eaters (the Inuit) and don't consume vegetables at all. To the best of my knowledge there have never been vegetartian societies. Now, this does not mean that the question of the morality of meat-eating should not be asked, only that it touches our very core.
Lastly, I just want to go back for minute to the issue of animal treatment. There is little doubt that chickens in industrial poultry farms are treated badly. They suffer. But growing free-range chickens and cows is so much more expensive (I think). This would mean that only the rich could afford "ethical" meat. Industrial farming allows even the poor to have it. This, however, does not mean that we shouldn't do our best to improve animals' living conditions in areas of the world that can afford it.
Thanks for your thoughts. About "To the best of my knowledge there have never been vegetartian societies": Large parts of the Indian subcontinent are vegetarian societies, since millenia.
I meant primitive societies. All (again, to the best of my knowledge) vegetarian societies are neolithic. These practices emerged after the invention of writing and the adoption of "organized" religions, i.e. after humans began to ponder the morality of killing animals (which, as I've said, is an issue worth pondering). This is not surprising because vegetarianism depends on farming (which in itself kills lots of animals). Humans can't survive on foraging alone (not unless they happen to live in a particular region where enough nutrition is to be found in naturally growing plants; I don't know if such a place even exists). This simply goes to show that this particular moral question is of a special nature because human evolution is so intricately tied with meat.
I'm not sure if this reply is timely, but I'll give it a go anyway. First, thanks for your considered response.
I'd like to point out, respectfully, that appeal to nature, or to evolutionary "purpose," is (especially vis. ethics) an argumentative fallacy (social Darwinism, anyone?). Animals (and, historically, humans) also rape each other. Some get mad and kill each other. So what? I don't see how this has any bearing on our capacity to reduce their suffering, especially given that with our neocortexes we've figured out how to subsist on nutritional sources that are not meat.
We've developed an entire slaughter system that is extremely unsanitary and wasteful from a water and energy perspective, and not to mention downright cruel, simply to satisfy what is increasingly looking like a human "taste" for meat. A pleasure. You talk about reducing food costs for the poor. Guaranteed that a food calorie from a vegan source is cheaper than one from the meat source. After all, where did the meat source derive its calorie?
I highly recommend following the audio podcast link in my original post and giving it a listen.
> I'd like to point out, respectfully, that appeal to nature, or to evolutionary "purpose," is (especially vis. ethics) an argumentative fallacy
Absolutely, but I've made no appeal to nature. The only part which may be confused as an appeal to nature is when I said that this issue is unlike slavery in that meat has played a crucial role in forming us. This is not to say that the moral question should be avoided, only that it's complicated. Calling human desire for meat "a taste" is like calling our desire for art or stories "a taste". Neither meat nor art is crucial to our survival, but they are both an important part of what has made us human.
You could say that, unlike art, eating meat causes suffering, to which I'd answer that our existence causes suffering. The crux of my argument is this: no matter what we do, as long as we live on this planet we will be killing animals, lots of them, and in very cruel ways. We might do it directly or indirectly, but there is no way to avoid it. When we approach the moral question this is something we must bear in mind. We might decide that it's better to grow tomatoes and slowly starve animals to death rather than slaughter them. But we cannot avoid killing them.
If your goal is to minimize suffering, then I'd say we should go back to being hunters-gatherers. But we can't, because technological progress is also an integral part of who we are. So we choose progress and death to animals. Now the question remains whether within these confines we should minimize animal suffering caused directly by humans wearing blood-stained clothes. Maybe. As I've said in the beginning of my original comment, human values change.
We might do it directly or indirectly, but there is no way to avoid it.
Sure, there's no way to avoid all of it, but we can avoid a heck of a lot of it. So why don't we? You seem to take a certain amount of carnism as a given, but I don't see for most people in the developed world why it should be a given, especially in light of the fact that meat isn't needed for subsistence.
If you agree that it is for taste and nothing essentially more, then we have to ask ourselves whether the suffering endured by slaughterhouse animals (in addition to the other environmental concerns I listed) is a worthy price for our pleasure. Without pointing to other irrelevant facts about nature or history.
I don't know that that's true even if we stop eating animals (what amount of land is required, etc.). But I don't have all the facts, so I can't argue.
> I don't see for most people in the developed world why it should be a given, especially in light of the fact that meat isn't needed for subsistence.
First of all, there aren't that many people in the developed world. What, a fifth from humanity? Second, not eating meat would place a heavy burden on composing a healthful diet for everyone.
> Guaranteed that a food calorie from a vegan source is cheaper than one from the meat source. After all, where did the meat source derive its calorie?
Meat derives its nutrition from insane amount of plant material eaten by animals. Herbivores do little more than eat all day, and most support an extremely limited brain. Meat offers concentrated nutrition. That's why it was necessary for our brains to evolve.
What your argument ignores is the key component of the link in question: the animals were too sick to be consumed. While you are correct in that factory farming allows lower income people access to meat, you overlook the fact that the meat they have access to is poor quality, unhealthy and often contaminated. You wouldn't answer the claim that X group of people doesn't have access to clean water by saying 'well at least they have access to water.'
Virtually all. Some were just hand prints. But does it matter if it's 100% or 90%?
Wikipedia says this:
'The most common themes in cave paintings are large wild animals, such as bison, horses, aurochs, and deer, and tracings of human hands as well as abstract patterns, called finger flutings. The species found most often were suitable for hunting by humans, but were not necessarily the actual typical prey found in associated deposits of bones; for example the painters of Lascaux have mainly left reindeer bones, but this species does not appear at all in the cave paintings, where equine species are the most common. Drawings of humans were rare and are usually schematic rather than the more detailed and naturalistic images of animal subjects. One explanation for this may be that realistically painting the human form was "forbidden by a powerful religious taboo."'
...
'Henri Breuil interpreted the paintings as being hunting magic, meant to increase the number of animals.
'An alternative theory, developed by David Lewis-Williams and broadly based on ethnographic studies of contemporary hunter-gatherer societies, is that the paintings were made by paleolithic shamans.[15] The shaman would retreat into the darkness of the caves, enter into a trance state and then paint images of their visions, perhaps with some notion of drawing power out of the cave walls themselves.
'R. Dale Guthrie, who has studied both highly artistic and publicized paintings and a variety of lower quality art and figurines, identifies a wide range of skill and ages among the artists. He hypothesizes that the main themes in the paintings and other artifacts (powerful beasts, risky hunting scenes and the representation of women in the Venus figurines) are the fantasies of adolescent males, who constituted a large part of the human population at the time.[16][verification needed] However, in analysing hand prints and stencils in French and Spanish caves, Dean Snow of Pennsylvania State University has proposed that a proportion of them, including those around the spotted horses in Pech Merle, were of female hands.'
I remember listening to a Teaching Company course on philosophy and something they said about Nietzsche stayed with me.
As I understood it, he said that we (as humans) are too close to some issues to effectively judge them philosophically, and one of the examples given was the eating of other animals.
I understand that people are a meat-eating species, but we can work around that if necessary. Does the fact that it's our "nature" excuse us from responsibility?
Just to add my current position: I'm a meat-eater.
I think United States v. Stevens (2010) provides interesting context for this story.
The case concerned the constitutionality of a bill banning so-called "crush" videos: brutal films in which naked women use their high heels to crush small animals to death.
The Court struck down the bill because it was too broad, banning the sale and transport of videos that depicted an animal being maimed, tortured or killed. They cited the fact that such broad language would include hunting videos and factory protest videos like the ones in question.
Although crush videos are clearly horrifying and wrong, I felt a strong sense of patriotism when I learned about the Court's verdict. You know that the First Amendment is strong when the Court will consider freedom-of-speech issues even in the face of something that is universally despised.
Hopefully, the bills in question now will be challenged and same constitutional principles will be applied.
I'm surprised someone would try to ban such videos. You'd think it more productive to ban the act of "crushing" itself. That someone recorded the act just provides evidence for any appropriate legal action (and vigilante justice too, it seems).
Well, I suppose in some places animal cruelty is more universally rejected than anti-gay sentiments, but in my opinion, the Phelps family embodies the same principle. I don't know of anyone (aside from a few families that have moved to Topeka to join them) that would support the things the Phelp's family says. But their speech is protected (as it should be). And really, it forces even the most conservative, Confederate-flag-waving of my schoolmates to be vocal supporters of gay rights when I doubt they'd be otherwise.
That's a great example. I don't agree with what Westboro said, but I support their right to say it. As Chief Justice Roberts explained in the opinion for that case:
"Speech is powerful. It can stir people to action, move them to tears of both joy and sorrow, and -- as it did here -- inflict great pain. On the facts before us, we cannot react to that pain by punishing the speaker. As a nation we have chosen a different course -- to protect even hurtful speech on public issues to ensure that we do not stifle public debate."
Phelps is really in a class a part, as their speech serves no purpose except to harm people. Harm is not a collateral damage that must be tolerated, but the direct intent of their actions, to no greater purpose even from their own point of view.
Because the purpose and value of speech are subjective, speech must be protected even when it appears to have no purpose. That was the principle at stake in Synder vs. Phelps.
Consider the facts of the case. Members of the Westboro Baptist Church protested on public property, over 1,000 yards away from the funeral of Matthew Snyder. Although the signs were certainly offensive, they did not mention members of the family by name so as to start a fight. And they did not urge people to commit acts of violence. In other words, the protest clearly did not meet the standards of fighting words or incitement to violence — categories of speech that are unprotected by the First Amendment.
I agree that the protest was morally despicable. So did the justices. Still, Westboro members participated in a peaceful protest on public property. To ban that behavior would set a very dangerous precedent.
Yeah, people think that they're just "haters" or whatever clearly know nothing about them. Go to their website and read about their beliefs and why they do what they do. They're far more consistent about their beliefs and their preaching than most Christian churches. In many ways, they're saying the same things as the more mild-mannered anti-gay people.
(I actually love to see Christian people whining about the Phelps. I just shake my head and laugh, they have their interpretation of the Bible and you have yours.)
I just completed 13 months of being a vegetarian. I wanted to convert since 10 years prior to that, but couldn't get myself to do it because I grew up eating meat as a treat once to twice a week. It got progressively worse after I moved to the states as I started eating it three times a day and expanded from Chicken to all other red meats.I loved it!
Fast forward to last year and we were having a baby and that's when it struck me - Animals often watch their family being slaughtered. The young ones before they're even allowed to walk. They scream all along. They're mistreated extremely inhumanely and the people handling them - let's just say there's a special place in hell for them! I NEVER watched a single video until I had converted and people kept asking me if I saw any videos....they're horrible!
We grow up being masked from how animals are killed. If you can't even watch your meat being slaughtered, you shouldn't be eating it! Luckily, we're raising our child a vegetarian. We've found great vegetarian alternatives and yes they don't taste anywhere as great as a steak or smoked ribs, but they're still very very close and I think I can make that sacrifice because I don't ever want to see another animal deliberately hurt because of me or my family. I truly hope our society can make the necessary changes to treat animals humanely. Granted, there's no humane way to kill anyone, but I'm sure there's a quick/painless way to do it.
I'm not trying to change anyone. I just wanted to share my story.
I'm in the same boat. I became vegan a few years ago for purely health reasons. Now in the last couple of months I'm starting to become more of a morally conscious vegetarian and think that the way factory farmed meat is slaughtered is just wrong. But there's where I stop. I still question the moral difference between killing plants or microscopic organisms and that of organisms in the animal kingdom. So basically if you kill and prepare the animal yourself that's fine, just so long as its done in a way to minimize suffering.
Yes, I contemplate about the same and it drives me nuts! Lol, speaking of which I keep wondering if we were meant to simply eat fruits and nuts. I keep wondering how many I kill every time I walk or when you dig for building a house for instance. Someday if I found roadkill, I might consider eating it.
I agree that if you can kill the animal humanely and eliminate (?) suffering, it might be a good alternative.
One of these days I'm hoping to experiment in our lab on a project growing meat from stem cells. Wonder if it would be ok to eat that?
An animals original genesis should have no impact on the value of its life. If you had a clone created of yourself would it be ok if you harvested it of its organs? What if someone else did? Now if you could just grow a loin or a liver or a breast in isolation from an animal that might be different...
That's right, I'm simply considering growing certain parts. It sounds quite gross the more I think about it, but I suppose there might be zero pain involved? It's certainly doable.
I became vegetarian as a child after I watched animals being slaughtered. Kids have a great sense for morality and usually love animals. I they see, how meat is actually produced, there is a chance that they never want to eat it again.
I became vegetarian when I was sixteen under the influence of punk rock music :) The funny thing is that even though I have a much more nuanced opinion on the topic sixteen years on, I have lost the ability to see meat as a something separate from the animal itself. When I see slabs of meat in the supermarket, I don't think about how great it will taste, I just see a part of a cow, pig, or chicken. In other words, my reaction is much the same as yours would be if someone would be selling say, cat meat.
There is a certain amount of cognitive dissonance that is necessary to eat meat without feelings of guilt or disgust, and at the same time feel compassionate when animals of other species are hurt or killed. Once people become vegetarian, whatever the reason, they often lose that ability.
I know a few people who grew up vegetarian and never had the choice as a child. Because they never learned the difference between 'pig' and 'pork', 'cow' and 'beef', 'calf' and 'veal', it's often harder for them to make a conscious decision to start eating meat.
I just watched "Food, Inc" this weekend, it's a very well made documentary. Much more evidence-based and non-preachy than I expected.
They talk at length about what they call 'veggie libel laws' and other laws introduced by food producer lobbies that limit free speech and surveillance about food productions. There's a long history of this, unfortunately it's nothing new.
It's actually pretty spot on. If you go and visit some of the places depicted in the film, without prior approval and scheduling, and you'll see it first hand.
I say this as someone who use to work for an organization that sourced and inspected chicken and beef processing facilities and, I've visited them regularly.
Sadly, it is. The types of conditions in processing facilities make a lot of the employees temporarily insane. They're asked to do inhumane things and thus become what they do. I even pity the workers. Most of them are illegal immigrants being paid shit wages to do horrible things to these animals. Do you honestly believe that if it was not commonplace that this bill would have even been considered?
According to the book "Diet for a Small Planet" the beef industry gets $50 billion a year of free water from the federal government. Doesn't sound like fair market capitalism to me. It does sound like our elected officials can be easily bribed.
At the end of the day it's about personal property rights or the individual right to privacy After finding out about Ragtime-A and Ragtime-B, the abuse of National Security Letters, and seeing the number of surveillance cams that litter downtown Denver, I no longer believe it when officials (private or public, federal or state) say things like this. "Personal property rights" and especially "individual right to privacy" is just duckspeak at this point.
Perhaps some people are creating abuse videos to fill the demand for animal abuse videos? Putting an end to that seems justifiable, and runs along the same logic lines that makes child porn illegal.
I won't say that there isn't a problem, but having been around many animal farms in my day, the videos that are out there do not seem very representative. It does make you wonder how much of it happens for the purpose of catching it on film.
I would consider your argument if it wasn't for the fact that the farm lobby has been behind similar bills in several states in the past (most recent was Iowa, last summer IIRC). It isn't animal rights activists behind these bills, it is farmers who don't want their activities watched closely.
For what it is worth, people who are interested in animal rights are generally the only ones who watch animal abuse videos, which creates a demand for said videos. They, naturally, have little motive to see an end to the production of like content being the consumer.
Farmers, on the other hand, have a lot to lose by people being abusive towards animals. An animal that is sick and hurting produces far less. Margins are already incredibly slim in agriculture. You cannot afford to have animals in pain. Not to mention the embarrassment of people thinking you are abusive towards animals just by being a part of the industry.
Or maybe you are absolutely right, but I don't think it is anywhere near being clear cut just by looking at the initiator.
I think most of these videos are recorded in abattoirs etc with hidden camera. So they are documenting something that would have happened without the presence of a camera.
It would seem unlikely (though I guess not impossible) that animal rights activists would seek to increase the abuse of animals simply to create the videos.
I do not think any animal rights activist would straight up think, "boy, I wish there were more abuse videos out there." However, by watching the videos that do exist, an audience is created. Where there is an audience, there are people looking to gain from that audience.
People do all kinds of crazy things to get hits on their YouTube page, even without direct monetary incentive. If you just have to hurt a few animals to do the same, why not? I mean it is not in my nature, but not everyone shares my (and I assume your) values.
Except that the abusers often go to prison, and there has been no established link between the perpetrators of these acts and the undercover reporters before.
Frankly this is silly. Are you suggesting that animal rights activists are really just people with a secret fetish for watching animal suffering? Maybe the same way pro-life activists love looking at pictures of mangled fetuses, and would love for more fetuses to be killed simply so that they can keep making more signs. This view is really quite disrespectful and insulting actually.
> Are you suggesting that animal rights activists are really just people with a secret fetish for watching animal suffering?
I'm not sure why you got that impression, but of course not. The videos are typically watched for educational purposes to help better understand the cause that is being fought for.
However, you do not need to enjoy what you see to open up the market for more production. As a simple example: If you see a cow being abused, you might be interested in what grievous things are happening to chickens. Now someone has to create chicken-based content to fill your wants.
As more people become interested in seeing inside the barn, more content needs to be created to quench the educational thirst. At some point someone without scruples will exploit that audience. It is human nature.
Most if not all undercover reporters that operate like this are volunteers. All animal rights organizations operate as non-profits, with fixed salaries for employees and leadership. The vast majority of income comes from donations. Their accounting books should all be open too, and any discrepancies even more likely to be reported because those working for the organization are also activists and whistleblowers.
The simplest explanation is that the videos are real, and unless any discrepancies are noticed, or any evidence to the contrary uncovered, it is the reasonable thing to believe. That doesn't mean people can't investigate to try and uncover malfeasance, but any preexisting beliefs that they may hold that the videos are all fake would be irrational.
I'm not sure profit is relevant here. Creative types (I use that loosely) are generally interested in wide distribution of their work, not necessarily the money that may follow.
> any preexisting beliefs that they may hold that the videos are all fake would be irrational.
I don't think anyone is suggesting they are all fake. The question is that if the want for the content causes some events to be depicted for the camera. It is only irrational to think that that could never happen.
And even the content that is completely genuine is still not very representative. A friend of mine is an animal rights activist and we took him out to another friend's dairy farm. He came away saying that he was quite impressed by the level of care the animals received and it was nothing at all like he expected.
I also remember a video that made the rounds of the slaughter of a pig that was pretty horrifying. However, it was slaughtered that way to comply with religious needs of a certain group and was not indicative of how all pigs are taken at slaughter. The people distributing the video made no mention of that fact though. The shock value is all they were concerned with.
The production of this type of content, even when real, is highly cherry picked at doesn't come anywhere near telling the whole story.
Except that pretty much every video contains additional information about which facility it took place at, and the company that owns that facility. It would be pretty easy to falsify if the video was staged.
I imagine your friend's dairy farm is very well run, and the animals are treated well. That doesn't reflect what happens at larger industrial operations though.
Actually, my friend's dairy is quite a bit larger than the average herd. It is not the largest operation that I know of, but its up there. I grew up on a small dairy operation myself and looking at other herds, the care doesn't really seem to degrade with scale. If anything, the care has improved because their scale affords more comfortable amenities that we could not afford.
Today, I have my own very small hobby grain farm. The farm next door is run by quite possibly the largest producer in the province. Other than the fact that his tractors have considerably more horsepower, and the implements are significantly wider, we do everything exactly the same way. With that, I have to say that I fail to understand what "industrial farming" even means.
With all that said, the media I have been exposed to has all been centred around the USA. Perhaps the US specifically has a real animal abuse problem on a grand scale. My exposure to farms in that country is admittedly limited. But if that is the case, why are we trying to take down the rest of the world with the faults of one country's policy on the matter?
Also these videos are usually distributed without cost, along with other media and handouts, to any smaller animal rights groups. Individual, isolated activists might have to pay minor costs, but i don't see where any sizable profit would be made off the videos
>For what it is worth, people who are interested in animal rights are generally the only ones who watch animal abuse videos, which creates a demand for said videos. They, naturally, have little motive to see an end to the production of like content being the consumer.
I fail to see how it "naturally" follows that animal rights activists don't want to see an end to the production of "like content." They would be the ones most eager to end the conditions uncovered by these kinds of undercover investigations.
Sorry if I was not exactly clear. Animal rights activists have an interest in stopping what is enacted in the videos, of course, but stopping the production of the content itself would be against their own interests. How can you see that the problem remains if there is nobody investigating and reporting?
I don't think that investigating and reporting is the problem here, after all we don't generally argue that news reporting about wars causes wars. Stopping the production of the content wouldn't be against their own interests unless they had some other motive to produce it. They would probably switch to shooting content about something else.
Luckily we figured out how to produce war scenes without actually having to go to war. We are definitely still producing the content to fill the demand though. Considerable amounts of it.
Like I mentioned before, we do use this exact argument towards child porn, however. You cannot hurt a child by simply watching a video of child abuse. But we realized that watching the video gives incentive for people to create more, which in turn harms future children. That is a good enough reason to attempt to cease the incentive for production to prevent future occurrences.
PETA has been accused of staging content in the past, so it is not completely out of the realm of possibility that it is happening.
I would liken it more to car crash/snuff type videos than child porn. People may get some shock value from them but it's doubtful that there are people deliberately setting up car accidents in order to get youtube hits.
I imagine that the market of people willing to pay money to watch a cow be abused is significantly smaller than the market for child porn.
> it's doubtful that there are people deliberately setting up car accidents in order to get youtube hits.
I hope the number of people filming crashes against random strangers on the highway are low, but crashes in a controlled environment are definitely happening to fill the market void. Heck, the demolition derby is a long standing American tradition.
> I imagine that the market of people willing to pay money to watch a cow be abused is significantly smaller than the market for child porn.
PETA makes money, and given their reach I expect significant amounts of money, from distributing such videos and similar content.
Though I would suggest that money is not the only motivator. Like I mentioned in another post, people will create content just to know people are tuning in. Likewise, in software we create and distribute free and/or open source projects just for the satisfaction of knowing others are using what we have created. Money doesn't necessarily matter.
I don't think it's legal to distribute dog fighting videos (in the UK at least) though I'm not sure.
I remember bum fights being controversial back in the day, not sure I would call it a phenomenon though. At least there the fighting was somewhat consensual such as with boxing etc.
A great piece. Who was on crack over at Gourmet when they decided to send Wallace to a lobster boiling festival? Here's a capsule summary:
He travels to coastal Maine for the annual Lobster Festival. What begins as a witty, sometimes snooty point-and-laugh swerves into something altogether more uncomfortable when the author poses the question "Is it all right to boil a sentient creature alive just for our gustatory pleasure?" "Consider the Lobster" originally appeared in Gourmet magazine, and it was controversial for all the obvious reasons. Few carnivores were amused by what they perceived as an attack on their morality.
I have never posted comments about whether a particular action has made me lose my faith in humanity, or whether it restored my faith in humanity.
But after reading the linked article, my faith in humanity is definitely shaken.
The meat industry's focus is not on ending animal abuse, but on making it more difficult for animal abuse to be discovered and proven. In other words, they are determined not to change their ways, because (I imagine) doing so will be inconvenient, and might cause them to make slightly less money than they make now.
How can any state legislators support such moves (and introduce these bills)? Do they have no ability to empathize with another living being? If no, are they fit to be our leaders?
vegetarianism is not the answer. Monsanto is one of the evilest companies on earth and they control most soy production (I say this because many vegetarians eat a lot of tofu).
It's about understanding the source and making good choices. Eat grass-fed, antibiotic-free beef (these two things virtually guarantee you're not supporting the concentrated feedlots) and free range chicken. Eat non-GMO vegetables that are locally grown and in season. It's about supporting the right suppliers, which thankfully exist for all parts of the omnivore spectrum.
First, vegetarianism is not synonymous with soy eating.
Second, the majority of soy is used to feed food animals (even grass-fed, which generally does not count how the animals are "finished").
Fourth, free range is a joke. Sure there are some farmers that give their animals a decent life. But labels like free range and cage free are not well regulated and give you no real guarantee of anything. Please do some research on what is actually involved in these kinds of claims, which are essentially marketing.
Finally, jayfuerstenberg said he/she was moving closer to vegetarianism due to the mistreatment of animals. Don't reply to that by saying vegetarianism is not the answer because it is in this case.
Or just eat pastas, lentil based dishes, vegetable curries, soups, or even supplement meat with texturized vegetable protein for faux meat pies, bolognese etc. I'm a meat eater and can't tell the difference.
The vegetarians I know don't eat tofu very often, and would rather eat tofu potentially produced by a notorious company than eat an animal.
Didn't down-vote you BTW, just thought I'd chime in because I know a few veggos, including my wife. It's not bad food I can assure you.
As a now grain farmer who grew up on a dairy farm, what I find more concerning is all of the crazy synthetic and mined resources we have to pour onto the fields in the absence of animals in order to be able to meet the world's demand for food.
Our production of "vegetarian food" grew up with the idea of having animals as part of rotation, but with the decline in demand for most meat varieties, economics do not allow those animals to be part of the cycle anymore.
Vegetarianism may be a solution for the long term society, but it seems like we have a lot of technical challenges to overcome in the meantime. Right now it looks like we are just trading one problem for another.
If anything, where there's been a slight reduction in one area of consumption (e.g. beef) there's been an increase in another (poultry) with an overall rise in meat consumption.
> economics do not allow those animals to be part of the cycle anymore
Given the incredible size of modern farms, using animals as a source of fertilizer is no longer practical. Meat consumption isn't really part of the equation - livestock require food themselves, so you'd need to grow huge sums just to feed the animals as well as produce enough grain/vegetables for human consumption. If you can artificially produce fertilizer then you remove this bottleneck.
Smaller farms would allow animals to be part of the rotation.
I live in Japan and generally avoid buying any food from the US. My beef comes from Australia and vegetables mostly from Western Japan (as far from Fukushima as possible).
It's not cheap but it's better than supporting Monsanto and factory farms in general.
The free-range and grass-fed stuff is far too nuanced (and expensive) by itself to put an end to or even reduce the rivers of blood and mountains of skulls that are the output of industrial factory farms. What will stop it? environmental legislation? Ending farm subsidies?
The problem with attempting to create ethical arguments against all eating of meat (even with human slaughter practices) is that it leads inexorably to the conclusion that we should exterminate all predators to prevent the cruelty they inflict on herbivores.
While these things are horrific, it's not much more horrific than what continuously goes on in the animal kingdom.
You're missing the key concepts of (a) the inability of non-human predators to reason about morality, (b) the inability of non-human predators to survive on a plant-based diet, and (c) the moral cost of performing such a genocide.
I've been through this, with university philosophy professors.
a) Morality is not viewpoint dependent. An repugnant act is not suddenly acceptable if the perpetrator lacks moral reasoning capabilities. While we do not hold insane people responsible for their criminal actions we do, in fact, stop them from doing it.
b) Morality is not dependent upon extenuating circumstances. If I murder you and steal your last loaf of bread because I am starving, it may be understandable but it is still murder.
c) The moral cost of not performing the genocide pales compared to the established moral cost (for the purposes of this discussion) of allowing the ongoing, millinia long "murder" of the prey animals to continue for untold generations to come.
Poor argument. (a) is useless because the end result is the same. (b) is useless for the same reason. (c) address something that wasn't actually on the table.
A better argument would be that in the animal kingdom animals often suffer horrible deaths, but that after living a free life until that moment. Industrial farms are misery from birth on.
The inability of non-human predators to reason about morality (a) is relevant because I would not wish imposed upon myself (say, by an extraterrestrial race) a morality which I am utterly incapable of even understanding the existence of. Since that is true, by the categorical imperative, I cannot hold to the same morality non-reasoning animals (or those which I cannot prove to reason).
The inability of non-human predators to survive on a plant-based diet (b) is similarly relevant. I would not wish to be held to a morality that precludes my survival. Most apex predators are strictly carnivorous and therefore cannot be held to any morality consistent with the categorical maxim which precludes eating animals.
(c) Can you please clarify why you do not consider the statement "we should exterminate all predators" to imply genocide?
I don't disagree with the alternative argument you provide, but it relies on degrees of suffering, which seems inherently difficult to measure. I am trying to provide an argument based solely on the logical (in)consistency of the GP's statement without introducing any new measures.
>(a) is relevant because I would not wish imposed upon myself
Ok, so perhaps it's relevant in a philosophical sense but not in any kind of practical sense. We know better than to humanely kill animals and eat them, so instead we will leave them in the fields to be ripped apart by other animals. Which is ok because the predators didn't know it was bad.
I'm personally ok with eating animals because that's just nature. It would be better to be caught by a human hunter than most predators. I also don't see animals as having some higher purpose, i.e. killing an animal to eat it is not the same as killing a human to eat them. If you believe killing animals is wrong because they are living beings then how can you reconcile killing plants?
In my opinion the problem is these industrial farms. There is a never ending pressure to bring prices down so that means cutting corners for the animals who can't write their congressman.
I would like to see something done to shape behavior. For example, if you waste meat you should have to pay, say 10x the price of that meat. Restaurants would pass this charge onto their customers and hopefully we would have people asking for less meat on their plates pretty quickly. Which should drive demand down some.
>(c) Can you please clarify why you do not consider the statement "we should exterminate all predators" to imply genocide?
Of course it does imply genocide but it obviously wasn't a serious suggestion, it was poking fun at the other position.
>I am trying to provide an argument based solely on the logical (in)consistency of the GP's statement without introducing any new measures.
Ok, then I concede you have effectively done that. What I was reacting to is that such an argument doesn't help anything. So it's morally inconsistent, so what? I like the taste of meat and pointing out some logical formula that says I shouldn't doesn't effect anything.
We won't make life better for the animals by pointing out logical inconsistencies. We'll make life better for them by driving behavior.
Regardless of one's stance on animal rights, this seems like a clear case of corruption. It makes me angry and ashamed that these politicians appear to have been bought and paid for. I can't think of any arguments that could convince me that "less information" here is a good idea or a defense of democracy.
Agreed. I'm not arguing for needless cruelty. Humane slaughter methods exist and companies/individuals who are not using them should be systematically shutdown and charged.
Who is making that argument though? That's not what this article is about. Most animal rights activists are primarily opposed to cruel practices only, not killing entirely.
> it's not much more horrific than what continuously goes on in the animal kingdom.
Where's your evidence for this?
In the animal kingdom, isn't death due to predators rather quick?
In factory farms, the animal's entire lifetime is one of outrageous torture, e.g. feeding cows a corn diet that shreds their stomach wall, and forcing them to stay alive through the pain with massive courses of antibotics. Or keeping chickens in cages so small they can't even turn around.
What is your evidence against it? Clearly you know very little about the matter as all of this is well established and any biologist or TV wildlife program can set you straight.
Few predators "finish off" their prey though they may often kill it during the hunt, once the prey animal is disabled they start to feed.
House cats, for instance, will capture, release and recapture the prey animal, sometimes for hours.
Wolves and Dogs will hunt and not feed, often leaving the prey animal to die from it's wounds.
Also look into how predators teach their young to hunt. It is very unpleasant.
I'm not saying that factory farming should be allowed. In fact, I think future generations will correctly judge us harshly for the unnecessary atrocity that is modern agriculture.
Ok, sure. But there's a world of difference between hours of suffering at the hands of a predator vs a decade or two of unpaused suffering in a factory farm!
I really do not understand how people can stand to eat meat.
I try not to be sanctimonious about it but the idea of eating animals has put me off since I grew conscious as a teenager. I don't even consider myself vegetarian, I drink milk and eat products that have eggs (not eggs directly)
Just the smell of meat turns my stomach.
I assure you, it's very possible to live a well-fed life without any meat.
>>I really do not understand how people can stand to eat meat.
You realize we're omnivores and evolved to eat both meat and vegetables, right?
This is not to say that everyone MUST eat meat. But you have to understand that finding meat delicious is pretty much the default evolutionary state of human beings.
Yes but it's easy as creatures with intelligence, to realize other creatures think and feel, for us to stop that consumption.
There are MANY things our animal cousins do that we do not do, because we can think.
I don't have any fantasies that meat consumption will disappear entirely, I'd just like to see it go down as society evolves, just like slowly increasing the mpg requirements for cars cuts fuel use dramatically over time.
If meat consumption was cut in half, maybe we'd have the time, money and resources to treat livestock much better.
Everyone knows animals think and feel, but that's no reason not to deny our need to eat animals. I think animal cruelty is bad because it shows disregard and they have a propensity to do the same to people. But I think it's ridiculous to have an equivalent level of empathy for people and animals.
Your over-concern with animals and enlightenment as a teenager is only made possible by the advanced state of our civilization.
> Your over-concern with animals and enlightenment as a teenager is only made possible by the advanced state of our civilization.
I think that's exactly the point of many vegetarians are making. In modern times, there is no longer any need to eat meat because cheap, healthy alternatives exist. Hence, eating meat is now a choice, and no longer a necessity.
> Hence, eating meat is now a choice, and no longer a necessity.
It was never, ever a necessity. If it were the Hindus would have died out, back when their vegetarianism was a dictate rather than a still very common preference.
I wonder if you think it was necessary because of nutrition (nonsense) or because of some subtler point about agriculture?
> But I think it's ridiculous to have an equivalent level of empathy for people and animals.
"An equivalent level of empathy"? Do you really think that a person whose empathy for human beings stops at "I shouldn't kill and eat them" would be considered highly ethical? You might not agree with vegetarians' ideology, but I don't think they are exactly setting a very high bar.
If we are accepting that animals and humans are generally treated differently (i.e., without equivalent levels of empathy), why should it be surprising that for some people that difference works out such that eating animals is okay?
We are treating humans differently, too. I love my children more than someone I meet on the streets.
Generally, our society considers it still ethically ok to have different amounts of empathy for different people and treat them differently.
However, there are some things that are absolutely not ok for humans to do: kill someone, eat them, etc.
To me, treating animals differently than humans in general does not logically imply that killing them is ok.
Absolutely. Anyone who suggests that vegetarians treat animals an humans the same is just being inflammatory. That clearly is not the case.
> To me, treating animals differently than humans in general does not logically imply that killing them is ok.
Of course, you are absolutely correct.
Similarly, having empathy for animals / treating animals ethically does not logically imply that killing them is not okay. For some people it means exactly that, and for others it does not.
That we "need to eat animals" is not a supportable position, speaking nutritionally or economically.
> Your over-concern with animals and enlightenment as a teenager is only made possible by the advanced state of our civilization.
I'm sure you have some rational reason for stating that, but given the large number of people in both the dirt-poor, subsistence-farming developing world and the much wealthier world don't eat meat - and given that this has been the case a long time - whatever correlation you think you've identified doesn't exist.
This.
I am 80 % vegetarian. I eat beans/pasta/rice and other vegetables for most of my calories. I love it and it's healthy and cheap, 2 things I like.
With good diet publicity and low prices on key foods, this kind of diet should become attractive to more people...
There is a difference between knowing that animals think and feel, and caring that animals think and feel.
I'm not trying to be funny here, I honestly don't care. Eating things that taste good is more important to me. Different people have different values, go figure.
Reaction 1. Humans are animals: you honestly don't care that humans think and feel. Ergo, you exhibit psychopathic traits.
Reaction 2. Unless of course you meant non-human animals. In which case why the arbitrary distinction? In this case you're not just saying that you have different values, you're saying that your morality is capricious and whimsical.
Reaction 3. By all accounts humans and pigs taste very similar, Google 'long pig' for evidence. Pigs taste good to you, therefore humans taste good to you. If you make the claim (for whatever reason) that you are not interested in eating humans subsequent to the claim that eating things that taste good is more important to you then you'll have to excuse us while we bend our minds around the cognitive dissonance.
Besides you are only able to make such a provocative claim because culturally and legally we live in societies where eating meat is okay - though few people take the radical stance that you do because most people have compassion for non-human animals regardless of whether or not the meat of the animal is pleasing to their taste buds for evolutionary reasons. Since you are being frank and honest, let me be frank and honest - I find your viewpoint repellent, I would go stronger than that, you disgust me. But, hey, they're just my values, go figure.
> you're saying that your morality is capricious and whimsical.
Sure, why not? I am okay with being capricious and whimsical if that means having different standards for members of my species.
> Reaction 3. By all accounts humans and pigs taste very similar, Google 'long pig' for evidence. Pigs taste good to you, therefore humans taste good to you.
As I have pointed out.
> If you make the claim (for whatever reason) that you are not interested in eating humans subsequent to the claim that eating things that taste good is more important to you then you'll have to excuse us while we bend our minds around the cognitive dissonance.
I believe I have covered this in "reaction 2".
> though few people take the radical stance that you do
This is not particularly important to me, but I suspect most omnivores do (although they are unable or unwilling to express their sentiments as bluntly/honestly.)
> I find your viewpoint repellent, I would go stronger than that, you disgust me. But, hey, they're just my values, go figure.
I expect that. That does not bother me at all. I'll go as far as to say that expecting another reaction from you would be rather unreasonable of me. However I do hope that you understand that the feeling is not mutual.
My point is that I hope you don't find out where I live, because I don't want to be eaten. Also, that if you ever say it's wrong for anyone to murder anyone else, you'll be a hypocrite.
Don't worry, I lack the desire to eat humans and would not do so even if I had the desire.
Remember that thing I said about different people having different values? Well (although I suspect it may seem odd to you) I place more value in humans than I do in other animals. Kind of like how I place more value in family members than friends, and more value in friends than strangers. Although "because I want to" is sufficient justification for me to eat a non-human animal, it is not sufficient for me to eat a human. In my value system a strong necessity, not merely desire, would be required for me to do that. (Incidentally, the strength of the necessity required would be different for family, friends, and strangers...)
None of this should be surprising to you, unless either you honestly thing that omnivores don't realize that animals can feel things, or honestly think that omnivores are all casual cannibals... both clearly absurd things to think.
I see no pressing need. My value system is flawed.. from your perspective. However I, not being you, don't see it as flawed and therefore see no reason to revise it.
Listen, I don't ask you to approve of what I eat (frankly, I don't give one damn about your approval). I expect that you will never agree with me. If you think resolving that is my intention, then you are dreadfully mistaken.
I understand that. But you should understand that, since you don't think morality exists, you can't call the guy who murders your family wrong. You can't call Hitler wrong. You can only say they're people who happen to have a different value system from you, which in absolute terms makes them no more right or wrong than anyone else.
That strikes me as a tad hyperbolic, but what do I know? I guess if I eat meat I must literally be a Nazi!
I don't recall saying that morality doesn't exist, though I am still intrigued by this standard for morality you mentioned earlier. Obviously this isn't something ISO dabbles in; who then shall I consult if I want to learn about it? Are there books? Or perhaps shamans on mountaintops I should consult?
I realize other creates think and feel, but I have great appreciation for the meat I take on my own whenever I shoot a deer, elk or turkey. I gutted, skinned and butchered my first deer that I hunted because I wanted to better learn and appreciate the adventure, process and amount of food I then acquired.
There is a writer/hunter who better explains what I'm trying to say, and he currently hosts The Meat Eater on Sportsman's channel (he also host the Wild Within on A&E for one season). Here is a short debate he had with a vegan, warning: it's a very level-headed and rational dialogue:
http://youtu.be/J2N0Utg7KYE
Another bigger problem is cultural norms, that moment where your the only vegetarian at a table sucks because now sharing food with friends / SO become so much harder. I mean obviously less of an issue when you cook at home but still.
I've been vegetarian all my life, 31 years.
It's been a problem probably once or twice. People always expect it to be difficult, but it just isn't. The only part about it I don't like is the 60 something year old, usually male, who pops up about once a year to make lame jokes that usually somehow relate being vegetarian to being effeminate, homosexual or some such thing. And seem to think its hilarious bringing it into conversation as much as possible. This is by far the most annoying thing. I have travelled through a fair few countries and have never found it to be problematic - and I have been prepared to compromise being veetarian if it would have been rude not to when in foreign countries. I have never had to however.
You have a point. I'm almost completely vegetarian (for ~20 years) and I try to avoid the issue, even if engaged about it, especially at mealtime.
It leads to conversations where people argumentatively try to find logical contradictions in my decisions. It's tiresome, because I can tell where it's headed before they even start ("But, is your belt leather?")
It seems more like they are trying to justify their own behaviors (which are even less well-grounded than mine), than to have a civil exchange of ideas.
And it happens not just with older males, but "logical" nerds as well (of all ages). ("Homo sapiens have evolved to be omnivores." -- gosh, I never thought of that before!)
Not for everyone. I know of two women who were both long-term vegetarians and went back to an omnivorous diet because they were always feeling wan and listless. Both women were foodies (one from a 'foodie' family), and both have tertiary education in biology and biochemistry, so they were quite aware of good diets and balancing. This doesn't mean that all women will have this problem, it just means that not everyone can go meat-free and have no quality-of-life issues.
Usually when I tell that story, almost always the first response is "she just doesn't understand food/how to balance a diet". It's tedious.
As for 'anecdotes aren't data' - when blanket statements are made, you only need anecdotes to show that there are exceptions. I also notice you never bothered with the mocking 'anecdotes aren't data' against the parent comment, which is all anecdote and triggered much more in the way of reply.
The closest the person you were responding to came to making a blanket assertion was "I assure you, it's very possible to live a well-fed life without any meat." Which is kind of trivially true, since many people live "well-fed" (whatever that means) lives without meat.
If the person had made the stronger claim "all people can live a well-fed life without any meat" your objection might be more compelling. Although still wrong.
> Usually when I tell that story, almost always the first response is "she just doesn't understand food/how to balance a diet". It's tedious.
And, if her "listlessness" was corrected by changing her diet, that statement was kind of trivially true, in addition to being tedious, no? (By the way, this would be a better story if you knew more about why the change caused the improvement.)
The claim that whatever dietary deficiency these women were (possibly) suffering as vegetarians could only be corrected by eating meat is a pretty bold one, since there aren't any known vitamins, minerals, aminos, etc. that aren't available without eating meat. Since you haven't even identified the deficiency it's not even worth arguing about.
Also, food for thought, it's certainly possible the dietary change to eating a meat-based diet REMOVED something they shouldn't have been getting. If they were eating too much wheat as vegetarians and had gluten intolerance, for example.
So, you are saying that because the original poster said 'possibly', it's not worth an 'anecdotes aren't data', despite me also saying that my stories aren't universally representative. You're providing a textbook case of confirmation bias.
since there aren't any known vitamins, minerals, aminos, etc. that aren't available without eating meat
Diet is considerably more complex than "X number of atoms enter the body through the oral cavity". You're right that it's not worth arguing about, because you're yet another person who says "they just didn't do it right" - something of a No True Scotsman.
> So, you are saying that because the original poster said 'possibly', it's not worth an 'anecdotes aren't data'
What's to argue with about the OP's post? This is genuinely weird. He hates meat an awful lot, doesn't eat it, is doing fine. I didn't comment on it because, you know, who cares?
> Diet is considerably more complex than "X number of atoms enter the body through the oral cavity". You're right that it's not worth arguing about, because you're yet another person who says "they just didn't do it right" - something of a No True Scotsman.
Nobody doubts that a dietary deficiency can cause illness, but a dietary deficiency that can only be addressed by eating meat would be a genuinely strange thing, and you haven't even tried to identify it. This is absolutely not about the women you are interested in, it's about the science of human nutrition.
Firstly, you can drop the white-knighting for the maligned discipline of dietary science. You're not remotely interested in being scientific - your first foray here was flat-out abuse, which is profoundly unscientific.
Secondly, you are saying that because I didn't directly identified the mechanism to begin with, that my experience is useless. You must be fun at parties - should anyone pipe up about the higgs boson, you will abuse them into silence if they don't start out by mentioning the detailed workings.
Finally, you are putting words into my mouth. I never said that there was something in meat that isn't in other food. I said that an omnivorous diet was required for these two women to lead a 'well-fed life'. I know less of the details of one of the women, but I've shared a house long-term with the other, the one from the 'foodie' family, and she's very conscious and aware of what she puts in her body and is constantly tweaking her diet to improve things, both when vegetarian and omnivore. The mental overhead for her to stay healthy was much greater as a vegetarian, and it was affecting her quality of life - she could spend a lot of mental effort getting shit together and keeping it tuned (as often as not failing and slipping back to being listless), or she could relax a bit, enjoy a greater variety of interesting foods, and go omnivore. Similarly, the bioavailability of iron in meat is much greater than in vegetables, so it's much easier to plan. She tried iron supplements for a while, but they all tasted like arse. These are quality of life issues, which you're utterly papering over.
Another example of diet going beyond the literal molecules that go in your mouth is cultural availability. Dog meat might be nutritious, but western cultures wouldn't eat it, for example. Hell, if all you're concerned about is getting the right nutrition, you can get food pastes that provide all needs, commercial ones that are similar to the homemade stuff that the guy in the recent article 'this man thinks he never needs to eat again'. Only most people wouldn't go for that, because of quality of life issues. But it is a 'complete diet'!
So, back to my original point: for some people, 'living a well-fed life' is better served by an omnivorous diet. But congratulations, I said that it was tedious when people respond with the same old arguments, and there you were, first with the abuse (how very scientific you are!), then the belief that the whole makeup of a diet is the literal things that go into your mouth and nothing else.
Nonsense. I gave you enough room to backpedal away from what looked like a very silly position (or, more generously, to clarify your position) and, to a limited extent and to a reader who is willing to filter out the goofy bits in the interests of parsimony, you did.
I believe the women about whom, strangely, only enough information is known to support your position (I name this argumentum ad snuffleupagus - see, something productive came out of this thread!) would be proud.
This. One of the things about vegetarian diets that rarely gets mentioned is that there are people whose body really profits from meat, while others' don't so much (this is why you get a lot of anecdotes like yours, but also a lot of people for which vegetarian diets do wonders). I read somewhere that it may be related to blood type, but I'm not sure about that, and certainly IANA biologist.
> I really do not understand how people can stand to factory farmed meat.
Not all meat comes from those hell-holes in the vidoes, and not all animals die in such horrible ways.
Open your eyes, learn about alternatives.
(For one example, I live in a place that has twice as many moose as people, and I hunt every year, filling my freezer with organic, ethically killed, sustainable, local meat)
It might be that the parent actually meant what they said.
While I agree with you in general, your comment implies that you know better than the parent what is ethical with regard to eating meat.
I can understand vegetarians who boycott meat because the animals are being treated inhumanely in captivity. But in my ethics, killing an animal quickly isn't inhumane. It's not like the other cows sit around all day worried about whether Bessy's fate could befall them.
Also, along those same lines, is your only consideration for the murder (not trying to use an incendiary word, just not sure how to phrase this more delicately) of an animal the distress it would cause others (animals/people)? So for example, if a dog's owners die, then just put down the dog? Or should euthanasia be viewed as the unsavory last resort due to an inability to care for the burgeoning population of dogs?
My wife and I take an in-between approach to this: we eat small amounts of fish and are otherwise vegetarians. This makes in easy to get enough protein (you have to work a little to get enough protein with vegetarian or vegan diets) and we can avoid eating animals that like it when you scratch them behind their ears.
That's a very common misbelief, getting protein as a vegetarian is not hard really, particularly if you have soy or quinoa in your diet, the latter being the preferable option. Cooking quinoa with kombu is delicious, super easy and can yield a wide variety of dishes.
I agree that for most lifestyles getting enough protein as a vegetarian or vegan isn't hard. However, why would you suggest something exotic like quinoa instead of lentils and beans which have been used as a source of protein for millenia?
I've never understood the exotic ingredient or 'superfood' fetishism in vegetarian diets.
well, first of all meat used to be different. the us has really created one mad food culture, and has been pushing it - quite efficiently - globally.
second, people tend to replace meat with soy. can you even imagine how horrible soy mass plantations are for the environment? do you even know how many organisms get cleansed when gmo crops are used? when I was in highschool, that's now over 12 years ago, there was a huge problem with land literally dying from the way it's being farmed. that problem has only got worse.
You do know that animals have to be fed stuff to grow?
I have a hard time believing that farming plants, feeding those plants to animals and then eating the animals is more efficient than just directly eating plants.
The entire basis of morality is that we're capable of reciprocating our moral duties to each other. Animals can't reciprocate, therefore they're exempt from morality and we're exempt from giving them any moral consideration.
wow, 215 comments for now - and I can not find the word censorship... have no time reading, what people are actually discussing here, but if the word censorship is missing, something goes wrong.
Lets be clear, if you don't like animal abuse don't eat animals.
Murder is worse than abuse.
These videos in essence are propaganda tools and I see little value in the so called animal rights movement that promotes clean killing as an ethical good.
But at the end of the day there should be free speech no matter whether it's right or wrong or for good or evil.
So if you eat meat you can't be against pit bull-fighting? That seems like a pretty bad philosophy to me. Extrapolate it further, we shouldn't, then, be more appalled by a gruesome murder (of a human) than a gunshot to the back of the head. Since that is untrue for virtually everyone, you either have to claim that nearly every human on earth is a logically inconsistent dunce, or perhaps there is, in fact, a violence gradient of some sort.
The issue is, is that you can't really kill anything humanely if you intend on consuming it. These animals aren't "put down" they are usually given a bolt gun to the head, hung by a leg and then have their throats slit so the blood drains out. Lets not forget that the animal is alive during this horrific process because their heart has to keep beating to pump out all the blood that they have. These animals experience this so that you can have meat that tastes better. Do you really feel good about that?
Lets take the "bacon fad" for a ride down fallacy lane. So everyone loves their dog, right? Nobody in the US would ever dream of eating dog, its even used as a racial stigma against other cultures that have a history for eating them.
However, "lesser animals" something that you would think isn't as intelligent as a dog it's ok to slaughter mercilessly for the sole purpose of mass consumption. But the fact of the matter is a pig is smarter than your pet dog. So think if it was your dog going through this, being born, raised in horrible conditions and then slaughtered. It bothers most people to think about that, so why does killing a pig not?
Dont even get me started on the environmental issues that we all pretend to care about. Given that factory farming is a main source of pollution.....
Exactly how conscious do you expect an animal to be following the step where a bolt is blasted into their skull to destroy their cerebrum? They are 'alive' from then only insofar as their brain stem is still intact. Practices do vary, but this is the most common way of slaughtering sheep and cattle. You would consider any human so damaged to be essentially dead, and this 'stunning' process takes seconds. The consideration of abuse should focus on the rest of the animal's life.
Regarding your second point, the issue we have with the slaughter of dogs is cultural, and has to do with how dogs are integrated into our society. It's not how intelligent we think they are, it's how we percieve them as members of the family. If pigs were the household pets of our time, they'd be perceived the same way, and the same applies to less intelligent creatures. It's a simple fact that we care for things which are close to us more than others, be this humans or other animals.
You seem to agree with me that there is a continuum of horrific treatment, a bolt to the head and hung up by a leg being worse than being "put down". I agree with that.
I also agree that eating meat and claiming to be in favor of animal rights involves a certain amount of hypocrisy. I accept that, and I am still coming to terms with it personally (I have noted to friends, only half-jokingly, that I'm only about one PETA video away from becoming a vegetarian, and so I try to avoid them).
That being said, and given that there is a continuum of mistreatment, I still think it is acceptable to eat meat and attempt to encourage more humane treatment of the animals. The hypocrisy is still there, but surely less cruelty is an improvement even if the treatment is still cruel. Of course at some point you will reach a minimum viable level of cruelty, at which point people will have some uncomfortable choices to make, but that's a good thing in my mind.
I would eat dog if it wasn't raised as someone's pet. Actually I just got back from Vietnam, and I'm pretty sure I ate both dog and cat at some point. Didn't bother me because they didn't raise them as pets. They raised them with the intention of eating every little bit (without wasting any part of the animal, I might add).
You can grow fond of plenty of the animals that we eat on a normal basis, pigs in particular. We also have a tendency to anthropomorphize animals which can lead to attachment.
Factory farming is indeed a huge problem, because it requires so much fossil fuel, grain, and antibiotics, and destroys the land and causes global warming. But the fix is not to stop eating animals, the answer is to go back to the roots of the ecosystem and actually raise more animals. Ever heard of Alan Savory? Check it out.
> So if you eat meat you can't be against pit bull-fighting?
Correct? Well you can but you'd be a bigot thinking you're beliefs are better than someone else's.
>Extrapolate it further, we shouldn't, then, be more appalled by a gruesome murder (of a human) than a gunshot to the back of the head.
Correct. Again a no brainer. There is however evidence that a person who commits a gruesome crime might be more likely to re-offend. This should be taken into account for sentencing/rehabilitation. But no, you should not be more 'appalled'
> Since that is untrue for virtually everyone, you either have to claim that nearly every human on earth is a logically inconsistent dunce, or perhaps there is, in fact, a violence gradient of some sort.
??? Do I even need to answer that? 80% of India is Hindu. 80% of America is Christian. You think people aren't logically inconsistent?
At some point you have to ask yourself if it's more likely that everyone else in the entire world is crazy, or that you might be mistaken.
People are not shocked by horrible crimes because of the likelihood of re-offense. They are shocked by horrible crimes because there are things worse than simple murder, at least to most people. The idea that every murder is completely equal in every way is just plain silly.
Torturing someone to death is worse than shooting them in the back of the head. Rape-and-murder is worse than murder. These are things that most people can see pretty clearly. Here's why: just ask yourself which you would prefer to have happen to you (assume that you won't be able to escape your fate no matter what happens). I'd take the bullet every single time, and there's a reason for that.
There is a huge difference between clean kill slaughter and animal abuse then slaughter if we are going to agree that animals can feel (which they most certainly can).
I don't think that the "animal rights" movement "promotes clean killing as an ethical good". Sometimes these videos are released with the intent of persuading people to stop consuming meat (and perhaps even eggs and dairy). But even if the videos are only intended to change certain abusive practices within the meat industry, I think many people would agree that abuse followed by killing is worse than killing alone.
The composition of beliefs in the animal rights movement varies quite a bit. There are some that believe all killing of animals is wrong. But there are a greater number that believe the suffering inflicted by cruelty and careless farming methods is the only evil here. Some organizations are entirely devoted only to stopping cruel practices. Some of these people might be against eating meat entirely too, but only because they believe factory farming and cruelty is an inevitability for the mass production of meat.
Movements are inevitably made up of many different kinds of people with varying motives. There are always going to be radicals (like many with PETA), but the majority often have reasonable arguments and concerns.
