LordSnooty

This is intentional misrepresentation. Read my last reply again, and read it properly. I actually said the opposite to what you have attributed to me. Please retract this accusation. It's the second time you've made it, and it's the second time it's been false.
Not in this instance, however. I use the word 'moral' because my morality prevents me from inflicting pain on a creature, or needlessly taking it's life.
Yeah, to each his own. Like with rape!

Oh, sorry, that's a strawman. Buh.. it's not, is it? It's an attempt to demonstrate my point of view to you.

You are suggesting that I should keep quiet about meat eating. Well maybe everyone else should keep quiet about rape, murder, mugging and so forth. That's not a strawman. It's a demonstration of your hypocrisy.

'To each his own' is a fine sentiment to express in a discussion about sandwich filling, but is not particularly helpful when discussing a subject which leads to countless millions of deaths.

Paul

Feather

You can't claim that you don't think meat eaters are immoral while simultaneously claiming that eating meat is an immoral act. You have done both. Thus you are being self-contradictory.

You are applying your personal belief system to a different individual and then trying to back away from the claims you've made.

It's not misrepresentation. It's fact recall.

See above.


Your point is noted and dismissed as so much assertion and irrelevence. Twice now. But keep offering up the poor straw sacrifices.


What hypocrisy? I haven't made any moral judgements and then claimed I haven't in fact made any moral judgements after. Nor have I made any moral judgements and then acted contrary to them.

And I don't suggest you keep quiet about meat eating. I do suggest you respect the difference between holding an opinion and casting aspersions, as you put it, on those whom you hold a low opinion of.

I don't go around to the local religious nuts and cast aspersions on them (though I curse them when I'm with likeminded people as a means to vent). I may offer them Nontracts. See the difference? I know you can.


You mean like the countless millions of deaths of plants each year from farming?

And that's the whole point, really. You've arbitrarily weighted some deaths as more or less significant than others, and then proceeded to belittle as "immoral" those that disagree with your arbitrary delineations.

LordSnooty

I've stated on many occasions throughout this discussion that an immoral act does not make an immoral man.

If I lie once, am I forever to be branded a liar? Of course not, that's not how it works. There's no contradiction in it.

I've tried to make it clear that meat eaters can be just as moral as vegetarians in every other way. Morality does not hinge on a single point of conscience.
Prove it. I'm backing away from nothing.
I don't hold a low opinion of meat eaters, all of my friends eat meat. Most of the finest personalities in history have eaten meat. I have never, ever put someone down for having eaten meat.

You cannot back up a single thing you are saying.
Plants don't feel pain and they don't experience emotion, so morality doesn't come into it.

You obviously haven't read any of this discussion. You've just waded in with a few rather ignorant ideas about what constitutes an ethical vegetarian, and you've ascribed them to me.

If you'd read any of what I've said, you'd know full well that I've never said anything about meat eaters being immoral. I made it clear that this was not my view right from the start.

I'm not even a radical vegetarian. Some of my friends don't even know I am one, it doesn't come up in conversation very often. Those that know are happy to eat meat in front of me, because they know I don't mind, and that I wouldn't even mention it (some friends have actually had the courtesy to ask me if it's OK for them to eat it in front of me).

But I'm glad that when the subject does arise, I don't have to put up with the rancid bigotry that pollutes this forum. It's been truly unpleasant. I've been made to feel like a pro-lifer. With leprosy.

Paul

Feather

Wait, you didn't post this:

Seems to my you're trying to have it both ways, as I've written above.

"I've got friends that eat meat."

Well, hell, Senator Lott has black friends and interns and such like, too.

I haven't ascribed any ethics, real or imagined, that vegetarians might or should hold to you, Snooty. I've simply taken your own words and cast them back in your face.

LordSnooty

It's sad that you've got nothing better to do with your time than to twist what I've said to fit your own agenda.

Paul

AtlanticCitySlave

“And fundamentalist Christians have an obligation to "do something" about premarital sex. That doesn't mean we should avoid vigorous debate on the issue.”

-Nor did I ever say one should avoid “vigorous debate” on the issue, so I’m not sure why you even add that. Your suggestion that premarital sex and vegetarianism are on the same moral ground is completely ridiculous. We don’t have thousands of vegetarians walking around with “meat is murder” shirts, buying “McShit, billions slaughtered” t-shirts, have people protesting out front of fur shops, beauty salons, etc., and breaking into labs to free animals, because those people view it as akin to premarital sex. Vegetarians (or the ones worth taking seriously, i.e. those who aren’t so for purely selfish, “I won’t be fat” reasons) consider meat eating murder, or at the very least as immoral and disgusting as slavery, rape, etc., and should be treated on equal footing, i.e. not allowed. To compare this with premarital sex is to grossly lower what vegetarians actually are thinking and arguing for.

No one has claimed, as well, that the issue shouldn’t be debated. It is hotly debated in contemporary moral philosophy, and many philosophers (probably following from Singer), have changed their views on non-human animals. Yes, many of them aren’t out protesting clinique or what not, but many of them have thought twice about eating meat, wearing leather, etc., and the moral status we should apply to non-human animals. The “apply” is the key word there, since in nature we often have (perhaps more often than not) fuzzy categories, and hence why debates will rage on (and perhaps never be solved) concerning who has rights and who shouldn’t, whether abortion is moral, whether certain tests are ethical, etc., since we have no clear cut rules to determine what is and it not moral. We have to create them very often and decide what we will and will not deem worthy of moral consideration.

I think, at the very least, following Singer (and many other moral philosophers) the ability to feel pain and suffer are grounds for taking into consideration the moral status of a being. If one were to shoot a dog and watch it die (assuming the dog was peaceful), we would call that immoral (just look at the thread on the police who shot the dog), but when we find millions of animals being slaughtered (to eat no less) we see nothing wrong with that. The many people in here no doubt apply a moral status to their animals, and for someone to come and chop it up and eat it they would be disgusted (and find it immoral). Vegetarians simply say we should apply those sentiments to all non-human animals capable of feeling pain and having interests. I see nothing irrational with such a moral view, and I find it better than most (saying we should attribute moral status to only those being with “higher cognitive functioning” obviously doesn’t word, for example). Now, we can debate the view, of course, and I don’t know of too many vegetarians (at least philosophically minded ones) who mind debating it.

We should encourage vegetarians to take a stand on a moral issue because we live (assuming you live in America) in a democracy, and whether we agree with them or not, standing up for what you believe in and taking action (not violent action…usually) are personal qualities to develop. While I see no problem with abortion, I am at least impressed that pro-life people have the passion to stand outside in the cold and protest, and I would encourage such action for all people (rather than sitting in their rooms bitching about how the world sucks).

The point of the bumper sticker is that, as I said, they don’t get it. The bumper sticker is as silly as saying “If you don’t like rape, don’t do it”, which would be silly, since the point of people against rape is that YOU shouldn’t do it either, just like people against eating meat don’t think YOU should do it either, so to expect them to say “it’s okay for you to eat meat” is to miss their entire moral stance, just like to expect a “pro-life” person to not take a position on you have an abortion would be silly (and hence the bumper sticker “misses the point”).

Your own words show you are biased towards your own view. It is easy to say “PETA extremists” and brush it off as such, just like it would have been easy to say “those damn civil rights extremists”, but rather than labeling them as such, and brushing them off, it’s probably best to find out WHY they are “extremists”.


“I respect people's rights to their beliefs. I will not shy away from critiquing beliefs that I do not share, or even ridiculing those that I think are baseless and silly.* I certainly do not feel obliged to "admire" someone just because they hold a belief strongly. I don't "admire" people for getting arrested in the course of committing a crime. Beliefs are not immune from critique just because they are strongly held and defended.”


-I’m not really sure why you keep repeating this. No one has said you shouldn’t argue differing viewpoints.

If you choose not to admire people who stand up for their beliefs, that is obviously up to you (I certainly don’t care what you do). I do think, however, people who face ridicule, scorn, etc., for their beliefs by standing up for them deserve our admiration, since the majority of people will just sit and moan in their houses, to their friends, families, etc., about how bad the world is, how things should be this and that way, and yet who never do anything to change it. Whether I agree with the pro-lifer, it doesn’t excuse me from admiring the fact they get up early on their day off to stand outside in the cold for something they believe in.


I’m not sure how your analogy of someone committing a crime makes any sense, so I won’t respond to it.


Finally, I am of course not speaking for all vegetarians. Many vegetarians think Singer’s moral theory is deeply flawed (as well as many philosophers), and they have their own moral theories. Many people think we should ascribe rights to spiders, ladybugs, etc., while others don’t, and there are even those who think plants, rocks, etc., should be taken into consideration, while many vegetarians do not. For me personally, to consider a society moral or at least after moral ends, while billions of animals are being locked up and killed for our consumption, is a joke, and a very bad one at that.

tronvillain

It is perfectly rational to consider it immoral to eat meat, and if you consider it sufficiently immoral, it is also perfectly rational to attempt to prevent people from eating meat. Some people are in the first camp, and so say "I won't have any part of it, but you can if you like.", while other people are in the second camp "I won't have any part of it, and you shouldn't either.", and still other people are somewhere in between.

It is not being labelled "immoral" by vegetarians that bothers me, it is being labelled irrational. There is nothing irrational about my choice to eat meat - I weigh the moral status I assign various animals against the enjoyment and convienience of eating meat and come out in favour of devouring the burned flesh of murdered creatures. It is the same as every other "moral" decision I make.

Valmorian

But if someone lies frequently, would they not be considered a liar?

Do not meat eaters eat meat regularly or semi-regularly? If you consider an act immoral, and someone regularly participates in that act, you don't consider them immoral?




True enough, although I wonder by what method do you determine someone to be immoral? How many immoral acts must one commit before you consider them immoral?




There are also many, many meat eaters that don't put vegetarians down for not eating meat. I'm not sure what this says about the morality of it though.

It runs both ways, mate. *shrug*
Can't go around IMPLYING that someone is committing an immoral act and be surprised when people react strongly.

Well, you CAN, of course, but it's silly.

Robert G. Ingersoll

I've eaten meat, or at least animal products like milk, butter and/or eggs, from one to three times a day for practically all of the 19,622 days I've been alive (exception: when I was a breast-feeding baby).

Fuck, Hitler ain't got nothing on me - I am one immoral sumbitch!

LordSnooty

Nobody's saying anything about milk, butter or eggs though. I eat them all of the time.
Again, nobody said that eating meat makes you immoral by default. I'd only think you're immoral if you understand the suffering of animals and yet don't actually care, but that's what I said all along.

Paul