spin

After the thread "A Plea for Vegetarianism" was shut down after incessant off-topic comments, name-calling, and apparently wilful attempts at derailing any debate, it was suggested that if anyone was interested they can restart the topic as a new thread. Well, here it is.

It is very hard to get meat eaters to come up with anything more than an argument ultimately based on "I like the taste" or "I have no choice in the matter" for choosing to eat dead animals slaughtered expressly for the purpose.

The only other lines of approach offered were 1) that morals have no real value and are merely a reflection of public opinion, so who needs to have a moral approach to animals; and 2) that it is just as immoral to eat plants.

This latter is in response to the argument that animals are sentient beings, mostly with some degree of consciousness, able to be frightened, perceive danger and are victims of gross acts against them for the full lengths of there lives.

I have already offered the challenge that people who eat meat of other animals are not too much different from Jeffrey Dahmer who ate meat of the human animal. This comparison was not appreciated simply because people didn't like being compared with Dahmer, and the comparison was not to any degree analysed for its appropriateness.

The few who responded talked about cannibalism being a taboo, or somehow that those groups who regularly practised it in some way became physically degraded.

If anyone has a moral defence for the eating of other animals (but not our own species) I would be interested in seeing it.

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(If there are any moderators around, could you please do something a little more useful than simply shutting down a discussion while having let the sorts of unrelated posts allowed in the previous thread continue ad nauseum.)

Alonzo Fyfe

If there were any valid moral arguments against eating meat, then we would have to slaughter all of the carnivores.

And if there is any argument against slaughtering all of the carnivores, then there is an argument for allowing humans to eat meat.

JL

Spin,

It is only an opinion that an animal's right not feel pain or be afraid supersedes my right to enjoy its meat. Without a doubt my position too is an opinion, but we out number you. Public might makes 'right' I guess. The price you pay for living in a democracy.

Mostly Lurking

Really, I think whether or not someone eats meat is a non-issue to most people. My guess is that the only time most people think about it at all is when asked about it by a vegetarian.

It's probably from this that you get responses like, "I just like the taste." Since they never thought of it as an issue to seriously ponder in the first place, let alone feel the need to justify it, they don't have any arguments for eating meat.

To convey the idea I'm trying to get across, consider the following example. For instance, if you ran into me on the street and asked me why I'm wearing a black jacket, I'd likely say, "I just like how it looks." If you were to push it further than that, and actually asked me to justify why I like to wear a black jacket, I'd likely not be able to come up with a purely logical, justifiable response, nor would I even care to try. In other words, it's not really an issue for me, and I don't really care enough to make it one, even if it mattered to you.

Similarly with eating meat, I don't think most people consider it an issue in the first place, and even when asked about it, don't feel the need to seriously come up with reasons to justify it.

spin

JL:
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It is only an opinion that an animal's right not feel pain or be afraid supersedes my right to enjoy its meat.
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This seems to me back to Jefrrey Dahmer. Isn't it?

JL:
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Without a doubt my position too is an opinion, but we out number you. Public might makes 'right' I guess. The price you pay for living in a democracy.
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Isn't democracy the oppression of the minority by the majority? or the dictatorship of the majority?

Might has nothing to do with morality, has it?

spin

Alonzo Fyfe:
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If there were any valid moral arguments against eating meat, then we would have to slaughter all of the carnivores.
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While carnivores don't have the ability to choose, or means to adapt to, a new diet, human animals can. You can choose not to eat other animals and live without killing them. As there is aboslutely no necessity for you to kill other animals, I ask for moral arguments for doing so in order to eat them.


Alonzo Fyfe:
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And if there is any argument against slaughtering all of the carnivores, then there is an argument for allowing humans to eat meat.
----------------------

This doesn't seem to follow logically.

spin

I must agree with you Mostly Lurking.

Let's see if it can get past the taste argument.

echoes

If we don't eat animals, their populations may grow too large, and cause a number of problems for the environment.

But we eat too much meat, which wipes out animal populations, which also has a negative environmental impact.

Humans have evolved to eat meat, however not on the scale that we eat it today. However since meat eating is something we have evolved to do, it seems odd to ask to justify it morally. You might as well ask for a moral justification for why we eat or sleep. The justification for those is their survival value, however eating too much meat can decrease our chances of survival, which goes back to what I said before- our meat consumption is on too large a scale.

Malaclypse the Younger

spin

The bottom line is that I am simply not answerable to you as to my preferences. The "argument" for eating meat rests simply on my opinion that it is not an ethical question, but merely an issue of preference. I need no more "justify" my preference for meat than I do my preference for vanilla ice cream.

I think we have a new version of Godwin's Law. When eating meat is compared to the murder and cannibalism of human beings, I think we can safely say that there is no longer any possibility of sensible discussion.

[ March 16, 2002: Message edited by: Malaclypse the Younger ]</p>

punkersluta

I know I said I'd disappear, but I have to respond to something said...

Echoes....

I now give you a poem by Henry Stephens Salt...

Mr Facing Both ways
by Henry S. Salt

When the Huntsman claims praise for the killing of foxes,
Which else would bring ruin to farmer and land,
Yet kindly imports them, preserves them, assorts them,
There's a dicrepance I fain understand.

When the Butcher makes boast of the killing of cattle,
That would multiply fast and the world over-run,
Yet so carefully breeds them, rears, fattens and feeds them -
Here also, methinks, a fine cobweb is spun.

Hark you, then, whose profession or pastime is killing!
To dispel your benignant illusions I'm loth;
But be one or the other, my double faced brother,
Be slayer or saviour - you cannot be both.

So, you see, animals would not "overrun" the world, as they are bred for the express purpose of being slaughtered. If we did not breed them so much, or at all, then we would not have that problem.

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