Alonzo Fyfe

Cute.

You wanted a defense of eating meat. The defense is a reductio ad absurdum (a reduce to absurdity) of the proposition "it is wrong to eat meat".

Because, if we have an obligation not to eat meat, then we have an obligation to prevent others from eating meat. This includes animal carnivores.

To hold that we should go around preventing all carnivores from eating meat is absurd.

Therefore, the initial proposition that it is wrong to eat meat is absurd.

Koyaanisqatsi

Hmmm...Now where, oh where could I apply that little nugget? Oh yes! To Spin and his cooking of the plants book, of course!

You see, Spin is God, so he knows that plants aren't living beings the way we're living beings and that animals are living beings the way we're living beings and that arbitrary assignation of these attributes allows him to declare what is and is not moral relative to himself.

If we can't justify ourselves to SpinGod, then we can't be as objectively subjective as is he.

I must concur with everyone else. This is not a discussion, it's pointless moral posturing so that Spin can feel good about his choices and condemn others for theirs relative to himself.

Everything dies and is consumed. That's nature. To arbitrarily assert qualitative differences to what constitutes a moral imperative regarding what you consume is entirely your own business, but don't insult anyone's intelligence any further pretending that there is some objective standard to abide by regarding your own choices.

If you truly find other lifeforms to be that precious, then commit suicide, because your continued existence means the deaths of countless trillions of lifeforms on your body, inside your body and around your body; lifeforms you aren't even aware you're killing.

Oh, that's right, you only arbitrarily assign comparative value to beings beside yourself in order to morallize.

If you want to pretend you're above nature or that plants aren't just as alive as you are with all of the same rights you claim for the animal kingdom, then have at it and enjoy all the chicken embryos your hypocritical stomach can handle.

At least when I bite into a burger I'm not deluding myself. As I eat, so will I be eaten. Thus the cycle of life is a crap heap. Literally.

I'm out.

Malaclypse the Younger

Koyaanisqatsi

It should be noted (for the sake of niggling accuracy) that spin's standard is itself perfectly objective: It is obvious that plants can be objectively distinguished from animals (and it is even possible to objectively distinguish individually ambiguous cases without invalidating the distinction in general).

It is the adoption of this particular objective standard as morally relevant, however, that is completely arbitrary to the subjectivist and nonfallacious to certain objectivists (e.g. those who hold that only questions about actions that directly affect free moral agents are ethically relevant in the first place).

More importantly spin's thesis that there is no objective distinction between human beings and animals (thus leading to the assertion that there is no objective distinction between carnivorism and cannibalism) is trivially fallacious.

All spin can show is that the carnivore's adoption of the alternative objective distinction is different from the vegetarian's. This is true, but unobjectionable to the moral objectivist. A fortiori even the arbitrariness of the adoption is trivially unobjectionable to the moral subjectivist.

Carnivorism and vegetarianism are no more or less arbitrary than any other moral standard; indeed the eukaryoticist can claim that, according to his standard, it is immoral to eat any cell with a nucleus; only prokaryotic life-forms may be morally consumed. The synthesist might even object to the eukaryoticist; only synthetic matter that never was alive may be morally eaten.

Each of these distinctions are perfectly objective; there is no disagreement whatsoever that eukaryotes can be objectively distinguished from prokaryotes, or that living matter can be objectively distinguished from nonliving matter (again, the presence of individually ambiguous cases does not, by itself, invalidate an objective distinction if the ambiguous cases can themselves be objectively distinguished). However, it is not proven that there is any objective ethical reason to privilege any one objective standard.

[ March 17, 2002: Message edited by: Malaclypse the Younger ]</p>

spin

SK:
-----------
I believe my previous point is valid and shouldn't be dismissed. If there is nothing morally wrong with ingesting animal flesh then there is no point of "asking people to make a defence."
-----------

What do you mean by "morally wrong"? Can you support a moral position that is neither guided by your whims or those of the society?

SK:
-----------
No defense is needed, particularly considering that meat is a natual part of an omnivorous diet.
-----------

This is the I can't help it argument, based on the spurious assumption that you are constrained biologically to consume other animals. You have consistently missed out the notion of human and other primate consumption of meat as being opportunistic, ie not necessary to the diet, but handy when what you normally eat is not available. This is the situation with primates.

SK:
-----------
Spin chooses not to eat meat on personal moral grounds, I choose not to eat meat because I feel healthier doing so. It's a choice not a moral imperative.
-----------

This is convenient to ignore the fact that what you are eating belonged to animals that had life and were slaughtered for your taste buds, your appetite, your lust. That it is healthier to do so is institutionalised propaganda.

SK:
-----------
Along the same line of reasoning, it's like asking an ovo-lacto vegetarian to come up with a moral reason condoning the enslavement of animals to provide them with milk & eggs. We don't find anything morally wrong with treating our animals like slaves for thier byproducts. Don't we, as humans in free society, frown upon slavery? Should the human right to personal sovereignty be extended to animals? Call it a plea for a moral defense of eating cheese.
-----------

Start a new thread if you want to talk about it.

99Percent

spin:

spin:
------------
Neither are your young children, but that won't help them, will it?
------------
99%
------------
Children are protected by their parents.
------------

Get the point?

I don't get the point. Who protects the animals?

Here, Native American, take these disease riddled blankets. Here, Native American, take these bullets. We're offering you a contract that will benefit you, while we steal the land you live on and your heritage.

You are blatantly avoiding the issue. The native Americans were never offered a moral contract, and they never offered to enter one. Animals aren't even capable of engaging in one. No animal is ever going to respect morals, which necessarily have to be reciprocated in order for morals to have any objective meaning. A bull is going to kill you if you invade his territory regardless of any previous ethics you have about not killing him.

Get the point?

spin

Danya,

I have responded to Bree and co.

If they are telling the story like it is (I personally doubt it, because of the institutionalisation of eating animals which involves the raising of animals in such squalor it should disgust the average eater who looks on the animals) and accept the moral stance I have put forward, then I think some solution will be arrived at from the second part of what I defined.

Something like this: morality is involved with the protection and benefit of of the greatest number of lives possible; when this is not possible, morality involves reducing the resultant damage to a minimum.

spin

This is worthwhile repeating and understanding:

---------------------
"It is useless for the sheep to pass resolutions in favour of vegetarianism, while the wolf remains of a different opinion."
---------------------

"Wolf" is the right word.

spin

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.

<a href="http://www.punkerslut.com" target="_blank">www.punkerslut.com</a>

For 108,
Punkerslut

------------------------------
I know that's not really an issue today since our meat sources are all domesticated, but historically speaking, it was an issue.
------------------------------

You are only referring to the first stanza of the poem. Butchery is how you get your dead animals today.

Not Prince Hamlet

I was wrong. Spin and Punkerslut aren't one and the same: they're master and slave.

Jeff

spin

spin:
------------------------------
I don't think your attempt to have all carnivores killed is on the thread topic.
------------------------------

Alonzo Fyfe:
------------------------------
You wanted a defense of eating meat. The defense is a reductio ad absurdum (a reduce to absurdity) of the proposition "it is wrong to eat meat".
------------------------------

That's not a defence, that's just a cheap way of trivialization, telling us you have nothing to at to the topic, but you like the way you say it.


Alonzo Fyfe:
------------------------------
Because, if we have an obligation not to eat meat, then we have an obligation to prevent others from eating meat. This includes animal carnivores.
------------------------------

It is a non sequitur, provided for argumentation purposes and nothing more. You are in no position to place moral obligations on the acts of animals that are outside the ken of such obligations.

Alonzo Fyfe:
------------------------------
To hold that we should go around preventing all carnivores from eating meat is absurd.
------------------------------

I agree. It's your idea.

Alonzo Fyfe:
------------------------------
Therefore, the initial proposition that it is wrong to eat meat is absurd.
------------------------------

As I said your argument is a non sequitur. We are dealing with human activities, not those of other animals. You are responsible for your acts, not those of others.